Clearing Joshi cloud, Govt OKs IIM plan

At a meeting with the six directors at Shastri Bhavan, the HRD secretary, S C Tripathi and the additional secretary, Sudeep K Banerjee, today heard out the directors and agreed, in principle, to the propoposals of the six institutional heads.

Students coming from families with an annual income of Rs 1.5 lakh and less would receive need-based scholarships. But to ensure that the system is not taken undue advantage of, other checks are going to be introduced. The amount of scholarship to be given to the needy student can vary from the full amount including mess charges to even 25 per cent of the fee.

The ministry, however, wanted a number of clarifications on the scholarship fund to be set up in different institutes. The ministry also needs to work out the amount it would have to give to the the three younger IIMs — Lucknow, Indore and Kozhikode.

The more established institutes — Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kolkata — do not need any money. A scheme has also been mooted to ensure easy that students whose families earn less than Rs 1.5 lakh can get loans easily. THis scheme may not be entirely ready by the time the IIM admission process begins by the end of the month as some details are being worked out.

Neither the directors nor the HRD officials were willing to speak out on the decisions taken. They would only say that the the fee might not be uniform as initially demanded by minister, Arjun Singh at the first meeting on May 31. On Sunday itself, the IIM directors had decided that each IIM would revert to its respective old fee structure.

This is the first time since the former HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi unilaterally decided on a fee cut by almost 80 per cent have the HRD ministry officials and the directors seen eye to eye and agreed upon a uniform plan of action. The step definitely gives back the premier management institutes their autonomy.

But there is one small rider. With the present government in power very sensitive to the needs of the poor, the IIMs have been requested to ensure that a ‘‘wrong perception of its probable elite bias’’ is not formed. For this purpose, the IIM brochures in future will highlight its scholarship funds for the economically disadvantaged in a much bigger way.

The ministry has also asked the IIMs ‘‘to integrate the need-based scholarship fund with the fees that are charged.’’ It means that at the time of admission itself the applicants have to be told in no uncertain terms about the scholarships that are available. The IIMs were told today by the officials that ‘‘the two would have to be linked up’’.

Sources close to the directors said : ‘‘Every step of the dialogue is going smoothly and what needs to be decided now is the volume of scholarships that would be given out by the IIMs and to what extent the ministry would have to pump in money.’’ HRD sources said the amount of Central involvement in scholarships would not surpass Rs 2 crore.

When contacted, Bakul Dholakia, director, IIM Ahmedabad said, ‘‘There is just no problem in settling the fee issue by June 24 after today’s meeting. We should be able to let the students know how much they have to pay before the registrations get underway.’’

Officially, the ministry said that everything would become crystal clear when IIM Indore has its board meeting on June 14. It will be followed by IIM Kolkata on June 18 and IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Kzhikode on June 19. Lucknow and Bangalore will come immediately afterwards and all board meetings would be over by June 21.