Kolkata, March 26 (IANS): Three prestigious institutes- the IIT-Kharagpur, IIM-Calcutta and Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) - will for the first time jointly offer a course in business analytics.

Scheduled to begin this session, the two-year, full-time Post Graduate Diploma in Business Analytics (PGDBA) residential programme will allow students to study one semester at each of the three premier institutes.

"The first semester at ISI will focus on mathematical foundation, statistical and machine learning theories for analytics.

"The second semester at IIT Kharagpur will focus on the engineering aspects of analyzing huge volume of data. The third semester at IIM Calcutta will concentrate on application of analytics in functional areas," the statement said.

Despite the growing significance of business analytics, the supply of trained analytics professionals is lagging far behind the demand for such professionals.

In India, the analytics market is expected to double between 2011 and 2018, reaching a figure of $2.3 billion by 2018, according to a report published by Nasscom and Blueocean Market Intelligence.

There will be a shortage of about 200,000 data scientists in India over the next few years, according to sources in the Analytics Special Interest Group set up by NASSCOM.

"Hence, creation of trained industry-ready business analytics professionals is the need of the day," the statement said.