The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) has put on hold the Post-Graduate Programme in Public Management and Policy (PGP-PMP) that was primarily designed for, and offered at a subsidised cost to, government bureaucrats.
Among other factors, the institute is finding the course too expensive to conduct.
Ishita Solanki, manager of global partnerships and corporate affairs at IIM-A, confirmed the development. "It's a holiday for the PGP-PMP course this year because we are reviewing it," she said.
"Fees could be one aspect of the review, but we are also looking at cost, the duration of the course, the structure and, most importantly, the impact of the course of the students who have graduated," she added.
The PGP-PMP course was launched in 2007 to hone the skills of civil servants, managers of government, public enterprises, NGOs and executives of private sector firms involved in public management. It is a full-time residential programme with a sharp focus on governance and policy formulation. Students from Asia and Africa were specially invited to attend.
In 2007, the government department of personnel and training (DoPT) signed a three-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IIM-A, pegging the fee at Rs 8 lakh for government-sponsored candidates.
In 2008, however, the government turned down IIM-A's request for a fee review. Consequently, IIM-A raised the fees for PGP-PMP to Rs 12 lakh for the 2008-09 batch and to Rs 20 lakh for those enrolling for the 2009-10 batch, but the fees for the sponsored candidates stayed at Rs 8 lakh, which meant the institute had to subsidise it.
The first batch (2007-08) for this course had 33 participants of which 12 were sponsored by various government departments. The second batch of 2008-09 had 39 professionals, of which 20 were sponsored candidates. And out of 30 participants for the 2009-10 batch, 19 were governent-sponsored. With the three-year MoU with government ending, the institute appears to be in no mood to extend it.
Although Solanki spoke of reviewing the "entire package", a source on campus said, "The institute had been incurring high running costs, and there were some billing issues with the government. Therefore, the institute has now taken a break to review the course and may resurrect the course next year or the year after that."
It is not immediately clear when the institute plans to relaunch the course.
