IIM -B to retain old fees

The Society of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore has decided to maintain a fee of Rs 1.5 lakh per annum.

The Society has also agreed to the director's proposal that the existing scheme of scholarship offered be increased from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 75 lakh.

The Society meeting comprised 16 members and the government was represented by S Banerjee, additional secretary to the Ministry of Human Resources and Development and K K Mishra, chief secretary, government of Karnataka.

Speaking to the media after the two-hour-long meeting, S M Datta, chairman of IIM-B, said, "The Society has approved the proposal that the basic fee will remain unaltered at the level of last year, which is Rs 1.5 lakh per annum. It has also agreed to the director's proposal that the existing scheme of scholarship would further be liberalised and the total fund available for scholarship will be increased from Rs 25 lakh to Rs 75 lakh."

Having approved this increase in scholarship fund, a decision has also been taken to form a Financial Aid Committee. This committee will be empowered to administer the assistance process to students.

However, Datta did not specify the criteria for being eligible for this scholarship.

The main agenda for this Society meeting was the discussion pertaining to the Vision Document, the revised fee structure issue and the introduction of distance learning programmes in software management.

The matter of older, financially stable IIMs supporting the younger IIMs was not part of the agenda and hence not discussed. Datta said that IIM-B is looking at taking appropriate steps in relation to increasing the intake of students.

Currently, IIMB has decided to stick to the the previous year's intake of 220 students. Orientation for the new batch of students has already commenced and classes are scheduled to begin from the "first Monday of July".

When asked about the details of the Vision Document, Datta said that was a broad overview of what the institution must do to excel further in the next five years.

"The Society has given a broad approval to the vision document, but has requested the director to present certain items to the Board for obtaining specific approvals, as and when they come up."

On the differences within the Board, Datta clarified, "The last Board meeting authorised the chairman to formulate the resolution. This was the first time that the Board did not have a consensus on a particular issue. Going back to the Memorandum of Association, I found that the Society is the appropriate body to decide on this. On April 3, I wrote to the institute, requesting that a Society meeting be convened."

Highlighting some key points from the vision documents, Prakash G Apte, director, IIMB, said, "There is a proposal being contemplated that we should offer our programmes either in distance learning or by being locally present in another country. We have received proposal from universities in the Middle East, Sri Lanka and Thailand that we should locally offer our programmes in their country. But the argument against this is the fact that there is a huge demand within our own country for these programmes. We have to first resolve this. It is something we are contemplating."