'No CAT for IIMs from 2005'

Here are the excerpts:

Is the ministry of HRD planning to reduce the tuition fee of IIM students by 80 per cent as reported in certain sections of the media?

Any report that we are going to reduce the tuition fee of IIM students is absolutely false. We have set up a committee to discuss the issue. The fee may be reduced to around Rs 60,000 to Rs 80,000 for IIM students.

There are talks that the ministry is trying to politicise the environment in the IIMs. What are your views?

It is a figment of imagination that the ministry is trying to poke its nose in IIMs' activities and status and trying to politicise the atmosphere. If we had any such intentions, N R Narayana Murthy, mentor and chairman of Infosys, would not be the chairman of the board of governors of IIM-Ahmedabad.

Will there be a Common Admission Test (CAT) again in the year 2005 for admission to the IIMs?

No CAT again. For next year, admission to the IIMs will be through a national entrance examination, like the entrance examination being introduced this year for admission to the engineering and medical colleges across the country.

We have set up a committee to handle the entrance test for all the business schools and the IIMs will be a part of this initiative.

Is it not an attempt to curb the autonomy of the IIMs?

Tell me, why should a student aspiring to study in a B-school take a dozen of entrance tests. This not only causes severe mental stress but also sheer wastage of money. To give students relief from such stress, we have chalked the national entrance test model, which is being welcomed in all quarters.

Even the committee to work out the modalities of this proposed examination has a representative from one of the IIMs, who will speak on behalf of the others. So, there is no question of curbing IIMs' autonomy.