IIMs win more support

SC to begin hearing petitions against fee cut today

The controversy over the government's move to cut tuition fees for the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) has taken a new turn with the chairman of the board of governors of IIM-Ahmedabad, NR Narayana Murthy, and Hindustan Lever chief MS Banga meeting Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee over the weekend asking a roll back of the fee cuts, and the Supreme Court slated to take up a public interest litigation challenging the slashing of tuition fees tomorrow.

Amid all these developments, around 1.27 lakh candidates appeared for the rescheduled Common Admission Test yesterday.

"The re-test, conducted under tight security, was very successful", claimed Bakul Dholakia, director of IIM-Ahmedabad.

The clash between Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi and managements of the IIMs started with the leak of the CAT paper in November last year.

It culminated with Joshi slashing the annual tuition fees of the premier management institutes to Rs 30,000 from around Rs 1.5 lakh on February 5.

Joshi had cited a recent Supreme Court order as well as the recommendations of the UR Rao review committee on technical and management education in the country in favour of his move.

The Supreme Court has also advanced by a week the hearing on the public interest litigation (PIL) challenging the HRD ministry's decision to cut fees.

The PIL has been filed by Sandeep Parekh and two IIM graduates, Saiket Sengupta and Anish Mathew, who have requested the court to strike down the decision of the government. They have said this is "a blatant attempt to gain control over these professional institutions".

Narayana Murthy and Banga, accompanied by KV Kamath, CEO of ICICI and a member of the board of governors, have sought the Prime Minister's intervention to roll back the decision to slash the fees.

The CAT re-test was today conducted in 26 cities. He said "We had taken several precautionary measures including changing the press where questions papers are printed, having additional security both at the exam centres and during the transportation of the trunks carrying the question papers."

The Director of IIM also said they would ensure that the next academic session starts in the last week of June 2004 as per the original schedule.

"It is expected that the short-listing of candidates for personal interview and group discussion will be done by first week of march and the process of conducting personal interviews and group discussion will start from last week of March.

The CATgroup has decided that admissions to iims will be finalised by first week of may," he said.