Govt to roll back IIM fee cut order

With five of the six Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have already resolved to retain their old fee structure for ensuing academic session as the last one was IIM-Lucknow (IIML) which in its Board meeting held on Wednesday to follow the suit of others, Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), as has been reliably learnt is all set to roll back the fee cut order issued by the earlier HRD Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi.

The new order is expected to be issued on Friday when the deadline set by the ministry to all six IIMs to decide their fees would be over and by then the deferred Board meeting of IIM-Kozikode also will be through with the similar decision of retaining old fees like five other Schools.

"In the Board meeting held here on Wednesday, we have decided to retain the old fee as charged in the last academic session for the Post-Graduate Programme (PGP) students and this time also the incoming students will have to pay Rs 1,30,000 fees per annum. But to provide further help to poor and needy students, IIM-L has decided to come up with more new scholarship schemes which may even offer 100 percent waiver on tuition fees to such students if their family income is less than Rs 2 lakh per annum," Devi Singh, Director of IIM-L told Business Standard on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, it has been learnt through sources in the Ministry in New Delhi that a complete roll back on the earlier Government's fee cut order may come on Friday which will finally, relieve the Institutes from the controversy going on since February 5, when Joshi had issued an order asking all IIMs to reduce their fees by over 80 percent to mere Rs 30,000 per annum.

"Ministry in its earlier meetings held with the Directors of IIMs had given complete autonomy to the Institutes to decide their own fees and now as the IIMs have decided to revert to their last year's fee structure, MHRD will roll back the earlier order. The Ministry also has given indication that with the IIMs enhancing their Need Based Scholarship (NBS) schems during their Board meetings held in last one week, the ministry is happy as the interest of the poor and needy students are being protected by the Institutes," said a source.

Earlier in its Board meeting, IIM-A and IIM-B, IIM-C also announced that the funds for NBS Scheme for poor and needy students are being hiked from this year itself to provide academic facilities in the Schools even to 'poorest of the poor' students while IIM-K and IIM-I are expected to start allocating funds for NBS from this academic session for which MHRD also may come forward and extend financial help to the smaller IIMs, in consultation with the Finance Ministry, added the source.

IIM-A has decided to enhance its NBS fund to Rs one crore each year from existing Rs 25 lakh of allocation while IIM-B has decided to enhance funds for NBS to Rs 75 lakhs from existing Rs 25 lakh and IIM-C also has taken similar decision.

IIM-L in its Board meeting on Wednesday echoed the same sentiment.