IIM review committee opposes fee hike

A committee formed to review various aspects of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) has opposed the fee hike proposed by these premier institutions of the country, Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) said today. This has been communicated to the IIMs.

"The IIM Review Committee under the chairmanship of R C Bhargava has submitted an interim report on April 4, 2008 to the government to ask all the IIMs to defer any increase in fee and keep it at the level of December 2007 (at Rs 3 lakh or less as the case may be) till such time as the committee submits its final report. The same has been forwarded to the chairmen of all the IIMs," Minister of State for HRD D Purandeswari said in a reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha. 
 

FEE STRUCTURE IN IIMs
Institute	Present fees for PGP (2007-09)  (In Rs lakh)		Proposed fees for PGP (2008-10) (In Rs lakh)		Percentage increase in fees (w.r.t. PGP first year)
	First year	Second year	First year	Second year
IIM-Ahmedabad	2.00	2.30	5.50	6.00	175.00
IIM-Bangalore	2.50	2.50	4.00	5.00	60.00
IIM-Calcutta	2.01	1.99	3.00	4.00	50.00
IIM-Lucknow	1.95	2.10	2.50	2.50	25.00
IIM-Indore	1.90	2.00	3.00	3.10	57.89
IIM-Kozhikode	1.90	2.10	3.00	3.00	57.90
Source: Ministry of HRD

"IIM-Ahmedabad has increased the fees for the first year (2008-09) of its Post-Graduate Programme (PGP) of Management by 175 per cent. The institutes have cited the increase in operational expenses of the programme and the financial impact of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission as main reasons for the fee hike," Purandeswari said.

The board of governors of the six IIMs located at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Lucknow, Indore and Kozhikode had decided to raise the fees for their PGP in Management programmes from the next academic session (2008-10).

The ministry also admitted that the Standing Committee of Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) Council (SCIC) had recommended to increase the tuition fee to Rs 50,000 per year for B Tech and M Tech courses.