IIMs await HRD nod before releasing admissions

Responding to the Supreme Court's order, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) have made it clear that they will not release the final admission lists till they receive official communication from the HRD ministry.

This means that atleast for the current academic year there will be no increased intake in the general category that had been committed by the IIMs in order to make up for the seats reserved for the OBS quota.  IIM Ahmedabad was due to increase its intake by 6%, IIM Bangalore by 7%, IIM Kolkata by 3%, IIM Indore by 4%, IIM Kozhikode by 4.5% and IIM Lucknow by 8% due to the OBC reservation this year which has now been shelved.

"We are still awaiting official communication on the Supreme Court verdict from the HRD Ministry. Once we receive the communication, we will decide when to release the final admission list, " said Bakul Dholakia, director, IIM Ahmedabad.

He said that he had been trying to contact the directors of the other five IIMs on the issue. "We (IIMs) will talk to each other if not by tonight then by tomorrow on the verdict since we have generally taken such decisions together."

At IIM Bangalore, the spokesperson told Business Standard that IIM-B director Prakash Apte was likely to talk to the directors from other institutes to decide when the admission lists should be released and that he would also speak to the ministry.  IIM officials are hopeful that the admission list could be released in the next two to three days.

Speaking to Business Standard, Dr S P Parashar, director of IIM Indore said, "Instead of announcing our lists on April 21, we waited till April 23 with the hope that something would come out of Supreme Court hearing today. But in the light of the court decision I only expect that the HRD Minstry would give us directions to go ahead with the admissions."

With the latest court order indicating that the OBC quota cannot be implemented atleast for now, Parashar said that he expects the admissions process to take place atleast according to last year's capacity of the institute. "Our earlier strength was 180 students and we hope the government to allow us to fill those number of seats now. The remaining can be filled as and when the issue gets a clearence," he said, a view that was backed by Devi Singh, director, IIM Lucknow who said that they were waiting for the government's directive.

Another crucial factor that each IIM will encounter when they sit together to decide on the admission date is uniformity in decision making in terms of how much time should a student be given for accepting the offer letter.  Generally a student gets three weeks for acceptance which might be reduced this year.  Dholakia has said that there is a possibility that students might be given a deadline of even a week or ten days so that there is no further delay in admissions.  The spokesperson at IIM Bangalore has also said that all the IIMs should agree on what should be the deadline for offer acceptance.

With the delay in admissions, the preparatory programme organised by the IIMs every year for the economically backward students looks to be under threat but officials say that if the admission list is released within the next two-three days, the schedule for the programme could go on as planned.

In order to accomodate the additional students under the quota, the IIMs are under pressure to hire more faculty and upgrade their infrastructure which would be relaxed atleast for the moment since the verdict against quota is confirmed only for the upcoming academic year. The latest order proves a big blow to the ministry as the indications are that the chances of OBC quota implementation this year are a near zero.