IIMs: income cut after fee cut

However, the report fails to explain why the IIM students are doing so well and finding ready jobs despite such ‘‘negligence’’ by the faculties. Nor has Shunglu received a single complaint from any aggrieved student grumbling about his academic needs not being met by management teachers.

But this has not stopped the HRD officials from trying to plan ways of forcing the teachers to spend more time in classrooms and to prevent them from taking up consultancy jobs.

Interestingly, the bureaucrats, who are organising selective leaks from the Shunglu report while carefully planning to take on the IIM faculties with no concern for their autonomy, have no management experts in their ranks. So, even without a single word of advice from anyone familiar with management education, an exercise is on to prevent the IIM faculty from taking home the extra pay they earn from consulting assignments.

In his report, Shunglu has specifically pointed out that income from consultancy work is ‘‘greater than payment of salaries to academic staff’’. In fact, in his conversation with some HRD officials, Shunglu even suggested that a teacher should be given leave for the few months during which he’s involved in consultancy work.

Another area where the HRD officials hope to interfere is account management. The Shunglu report draws attention to ‘‘frequent accounting changes’’, accusing the IIMs of ‘‘overstating the expenditure’’. It has suggested auditing of the prestigious B-schools by chartered accountants and a supplementary audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General.

When contacted, an IIM Kolkata faculty member pointed out that these measures being thought out by the HRD ministry were ‘‘outrageous’’ and ‘‘indicative of complete ignorance of management studies’’. Without consultancy, management education is incomplete. That IIMs have done well over the years is ‘‘because the teaching modules are being forever enriched by the practical experience of the professors and their familiarity with the changes being introduced every couple of years’’.

In fact, an IIM Ahmedabad faculty member said the volume of consultancy should ideally be much higher. A few years back, the Committee of Future Directions of the IIM Ahmedabad had urged the faculty members to regularly update and familiarise themselves with contemporary management tools through greater consultancy involvement.

With the ministry-IIM rift expected to widen further as a fallout of the Shunglu report, the new Higher Education Secretary, S C Tripathi, is unlikely to find it easy to embark on a dialogue with the IIMs, as he had planned earlier.

It is learnt that Union HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi has also been advised by the bureaucrats looking after management education not to negotiate with the IIM faculties just now. Neither Tripathi nor V S Pandey, Joint Secretary for Technical Education, would comment on the Shunglu report and the steps to be taken on its basis.