IIMs will revert to old fee structure

Directors of all the six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) who discussed in detail various aspects of the fee issue here on Sunday, are believed to have reached a consensus and finalised a draft fee structure proposal.

They would table the proposal before the ministry of human resources development in a meeting scheduled on Tuesday, for its approval.

Though the directors remained tightlipped about the content of the draft fee structure, sources said the institutes were of the opinion of retaining their fees for the last academic session also during the ensuing academic session.

It is also believed that the institutes wanted to strengthen various scholarship schemes including enhancing the Need Based Scholarship (NBS) scheme, which as of date, is being offered by four out of the six IIMs.

Significantly, all six IIMs have convened meetings of their board of governors during the week starting June 14, to formally approve the decision of the respective directors in the board prior to the meeting with Arjun Singh, minister of human resources development, slated to be held in New Delhi on June 25.

In the board meets, the IIMs which had earlier decided to charge fees of Rs 30,000 as per the order of MHRD issued on February 5, are expected to resolve to rolling back of the old fee structure, while also taking decisions on the scholarship schemes, with and without the help of the industries and alumni.

The IIMs have decided on Sunday to request the government to extend funds for hiking the corpus of the NBS and help IIM-Indore and IIM-Kozhikode to create such funds which will ultimately help the government to reduce its sanctions on the IIMs in future.

"While the new government has its own constraint of rolling back the earlier order of Murli Manohar Joshi, it has asked the IIMs to work out a formula which will save the face of the institutes as well as the government, which has coalition parties like CPI(M) and CPI, apart from other Left Front members backing from outside, and not in favour of a rise in fees, or even rolling back the Joshi order. The IIMs finally drafted a proposal on Sunday which is expected to be accepted by all, but there is no such possibility of IIM-A and IIM-B deciding to slash fees to make the government happy," said the source.

In a formal press briefing which took place here this evening, Bakul Dholakia, director of IIM-A said, "The directors of the six IIMs discussed in detail various aspects of the fee issue. Based on the consensus that emerged, we have prepared a proposal which will be discussed with the secretary, MHRD, on June 8 and subsequently, it will be presented to the respective boards for their consideration and approval."

Dholakia denied to comment further about the issues discussed in the meeting while Prakash Apte, director of IIM-Bangalore, Shekhar Choudhuri, director of IIM-C, P Parashar, director of IIM-Indore, Devi Singh, director of IIM-Lucknow and Krishna Kumar, director of IIM-Kozhikode, also remained tightlipped.

When asked whether the directors are unanimous over the draft fee structure, Dholakia, said, "There was no difference of opinion among the directors over the proposal and the meeting was not stormy as expected by the media."