Taking a dig at the draft IIM Bill, professor Anil Gupta of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) stated that no institute in India achieved excellence without autonomy.
Taking part in a seminar organised at IIM Ahmedabad here today to discuss the draft bill, Gupta requested the government to stay away from regulating IIMs through the bill.
"You name even one institution which has achieved excellence without autonomy. While there are so many institutions which achieved excellence, none did it without autonomy. I don't know why the government wants to rob this joy of producing excellence," Gupta said.
Gupta blamed the bureaucracy for proposing such a bill, which according to him, would give the government more control over the institution.
"Such a bill is being proposed because autonomous institutes (like IIMs) express autonomous views, feelings and ideas. They speak their mind. This may not be liked by the bureaucracy. I would not say government, but the bureaucracy," Gupta said.
He also took a satirical dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's slogan of "minimum government maximum governance".
"If you start micro-managing institutes, then this is certainly not 'minimum government maximum governance'. In the past, the government made a big contribution by keeping themselves away (from IIMs). They never interfered. We enjoyed our freedom and we are thankful to them for that," Gupta said.
He also suggested that government must take help from IIMs to mentor other institutes rather than curtailing their powers.
"Instead of taking our help to turn other institutes into world class institutes, the government wants to tell us that you might have achieved excellence, but we (government) will tell you (IIMs) how to manage that excellence," Gupta said.
