Dissent simmering ahead of IIM meet

A large section of the IIM community now feels that IIM Bangalore should raise the banner of revolt against the HRD Ministry’s decision...

A large section of the IIM community now feels that IIM Bangalore should raise the banner of revolt against the HRD Ministry’s decision to spike its plan for a campus in Singapore just as IIM Ahmedabad campaigned against the fee slash when BJP’s Murli Manohar Joshi was minister.

The meeting of the directors of all six IIMs in Kolkata scheduled early next month is expected to register ‘‘concern and displeasure’’ at the HRD Ministry’s decision, seen as impinging on the ‘‘autonomy of the IIMs’’.

‘‘Logically, IIM directors should discuss the matter at the Kolkata meet. But the question is who will do the necessary background work for setting the agenda,’’ says Bakul Dholakia, director of IIM Ahmedabad.

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Other directors were uncertain about the agenda too. ‘‘We usually discuss all issues concerning the institutes at the directors’ meet,’’ was all IIM Calcutta director Shekhar Choudhury would say.

‘‘The decision of the HRD Ministry not to allow IIM Bangalore to open a campus in Singapore cannot be seen as a simplistic one. It impinges on the autonomy of the institutes, which have become global brands,’’ said a senior faculty member of the IIM Calcutta. The decision took a fresh beating yesterday as Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong said the scrapping of a campus plan was a ‘‘loss to India’’.

‘‘The IIMs enjoy a world-wide reputation for the quality education it provides and preventing an IIM to expand overseas in the times of globalisation does not augur well neither for the government nor for the IIMs,’’ said a faculty member.

Another IIM professor here said: ‘‘Four IIMs had agreed to the fee slash, it was IIM Ahmedabad which came up strongly against it as the decision hurt them the most. Going by that logic, IIM Bangalore should now stand up and gather opinion about the onslaught on the autonomy of the world class institutes.’’

IIMs can’t go global as of now: Arjun

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New Delhi: HRD Minister Arjun Singh has said that the B-schools cannot establish campuses abroad as of now. “There is no provision in their memorandum of understanding to establish brick and mortar campuses abroad as of now. If this is amended, they can do so,” he told the NDTV. The institutions were run on MOU and entitled only to tie-ups on research activities. Referring to charges that his ministry was trying to kill the IIMs from going global, Singh said the institutions were not “companies floated by anyone and these are set up by the state”. Observing that hundreds of crores of investment had gone into them, he said in the last two to three years the institutions were making some money through various projects and therefore they had corpus. “So they are not independent floating companies free to do whatever they like,” he added. —PTI

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