No fee cut as IIMs reverse Joshi stand

After today’s deliberations — new HRD Minister Arjun Singh had asked the IIMS to meet and decide the fee structure they wanted — the six directors decided that though they would charge the same fees as earlier, they would each set up a separate need-based scholarship fund to help the ‘‘economically disadvantaged’’ students.

At a press conference, the six directors did not discuss the consensus they had reached, reiterating that they would first let the Ministry know and reveal the details to the media only after a meeting in Delhi scheduled for Tuesday.

‘‘The six IIMs have discussed in detail various aspects of the fee cut issue and based on the consensus we have prepared a proposal which will be discussed with Secretary, Ministry of HRD on June 8 and will subsequently be presented to the respective boards for their consideration and approval.’’

IIMA director Bakul Dholakia said: ‘‘The new HRD minister has given us power to retain our autonomy and we have utilised the freedom fully. A uniform decision has been taken and there is no differences among the six directors on the path that we have chosen to take.’’

IIM Lucknow director, Devi Singh, whose board had taken the decision to slash fees, said: ‘‘We have only Rs 15 crore corpus with us. We had decided to go along with the fee cut only if the Ministry paid us the full compensation for working capital and subsidising.’’

‘‘We maintained that if we don’t get the amount required, we will revert to our orginal fee of Rs 1.40 lakh. So there’s no legal tangle.’’

All the IIMs are supposed to pass today’s decision through their board meetings this month once it is endorsed by the Ministry.

IIM Indore will be holding its meeting on June 14, followed by IIM Calcutta on June 18 and IIMA and IIM Kozhikode on June 19. Bangalore will meet on June 21 and Lucknow on June 23. The institutes are to revert to the Ministry once all boards pass the proposal, latest by June 25.

Sekhar Chowdhury, IIM Calcutta director said ‘‘once this proposal gets acceptance from the Ministry, we will also sort out the case pending in Calcutta High Court regarding the faculty going against the chairman. I am hopeful… everything will become clear by June 8.’’

Sources said that the IIMs today were divided into two groups with directors of Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta, having arrived with their minds made up in favour of the ‘‘revert to the old fees’’ formula.

It may not conform entirely to the HRD ministry’s request for one single, uniform fee but there is no huge difference in the different fees charged by the six IIMs. It varies between Rs 1.25 and Rs 1.6 lakh per year at present, IIM sources said. For the scholarship fund, the richer and older IIMs of Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta would not require any financial support from the Ministry. Their individual corpus of approximately Rs 100 crore each will take care of the money required for the need-based scholarship.

Lucknow can meet the requirement with minimal support from the HRD Ministry. Only Indore and Kozhikode will have to depend heavily on the Ministry.

It is the varying pace of growth of the different IIMs that paved the way for today’s decision not to have one single fee. Kozhikode and Indore never wanted the fees raised.

While it would have brought them at par with the older IIMs, it would have made them less attractive for a large number of successful CAT examinees.