Ahmedabad: A growing number of executives from the U.S. and Europe, as well as from those from West Asia, looks at India as a land of opportunity and prefers Indian B-Schools to gain entrepreneurial experience in the pulsating economic scenario of the country. The number of candidates applying to top business schools like the IIMs and ISB for their executive management programmes has gone up by about 20 percent this year over the last year, reports Kumar Anand from the Economic Times. Christopher Garnnic, an IT engineer with four years' experience in the U.S. has enrolled in the Indian School of Business (ISB) this year to help him with the transition. "India is full of opportunities and the economic scenario is robust, with strong projected growth. It makes sense to work here more than anywhere else," he says. Not only Garnnic, but several IT professionals who have worked in the West have joined IIM-Calcutta's one-year, full-time post-graduate programme for executives (PGPEX), hoping to become entrepreneurs in health care, education and power in India, says Chairperson C Panduranga Bhatta. Others have opted for a comparable course at IIM-Ahmedabad, the post-graduate programme in management for executives (PGPX). With the opportunities available in India - the slide of economies in the West over the past year and the rise in salaries here, executives like Rahul Pradhan, who completed his masters in pharmacy, worked in the U.S. for seven years and now plans to settle down in India, feels the same way. "The scope of opportunities in India is arguably the best, at a time when opportunities offered by the American economy have narrowed down," he says. Pradhan too has enrolled for a post-graduate course at IIM-A. However, in terms of salaries, many executives were drawn by the nearly 30 percent increase offered to IIM-A's PGPX candidates in 2010, as compared to the fall in domestic pay to 20 lakh across post-graduate programmes, and the dip in international pay to $1,22,000 in 2009. Further, IIM-C's PGPEX programme did not have a single international placement. But, there is also a growing interest among entrepreneurs to put their ideas to test in a market that has a large pool of locals with spending power. B-schools here are clearly gaining from an increased interest in Indian markets that is also weaning away candidates from management schools in developed economies. "I preferred IIM-A over Harvard despite getting a scholarship to pursue my MBA from there," says Sumera Hasham, who is currently pursuing her one-year MBA from IIM-A. Sunil Goel, Director with the executive search firm, GlobalHunt, said that Sumera's decision is not hard to understand. "The country has become a global hub for the services and products industry, and people looking for potential markets turn to India," he says. "With local people having more buying power, entrepreneurs can easily bring their ideas to flow and register success here."