IIM-A,IIM-B call for downsizing governing bodies

Even as the IIMs have near unanimously junked most recommendations of the R C Bhargava Committee,IIM Bangalore...

Even as the IIMs have near unanimously junked most recommendations of the R C Bhargava Committee,IIM Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad have favourably viewed at least one recommendation. That of reduction in size of each IIMs Board of Governors BoGs.

Sources said that IIM Bangalore has submitted a proposal to the HRD Ministry,suggesting that its 26-member BoG be downsized to a 16-member panel. It has moved the proposal as part of its larger suggestion to revise its Memorandum of Association MoA in which various governance concerns are addressed. IIM Ahmedabad too is learnt to have submitted a proposal to bring down its 28-member panel to a 15-member one. While other IIMs could follow suit soon,the HRD Ministry too is learnt to be open to the idea.

The IIM Bangalore BoG is currently headed by Reliance CMD Mukesh Ambani and has on board the likes of Biocon founder

Kiran Shaw Mazumdar,Kris Gopalkrishnan from Infosys,Planning Commission member Prof Narendra Jadhav,Ravi Parthasarthy CMD ILamp;FS,DG National

Productivity Council N C Vasudevan,Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor Prof Prabhu Dev among others.

IIM Ahmedabad BoG is headed by Raymonds Vijaypat Singhania. While it had three vacancies until recently,the HRD Ministry has nominated management consultant Rama Bijapurkar for a second term,Dr Amrita Patel of the National Dairy Development Board,and Anand and Sunil Bharti Mittal to fill these slots.

Most IIMs did agree that a reduction of the size of Boards is a good idea though there was a flawed argument that trimming BoG would affect the representative nature of the IIM Board. The BoG should not be constituted on the basis of a kind of quota system. Ideally,the Board should select its own members who must be 10-12 eminent people with some government representatives, an IIM Director said.

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The recommendation for a smaller BoG came from the Bhargava Committee in 2008. Terming the existing 24-25 member IIM BOGs rather unwieldy,the committee had called for the creation of 11-member BoGs for each IIM with six independent professionals as members and five of them,including a nominee each of the Centre,state government,faculty,besides the IIM chairman and director. The idea was to model them on the Western Business school systems.

However,the suggestion that a special committee headed by Secretary of HRD Ministry and three other independent professionals on board will make initial selections to the BoG had upset most IIMs.

The committee had recommended that at a later stage,IIM BoGs will be able to fill vacancies on their own and would also have the power to appoint its director,propose the name of chairman to a pan-IIM Board,raise funds,determine fee for all courses,create and abolish posts and so on.

While the idea of an overarching pan-IIM Board was unanimously rejected by IIMs,a reduction in the size of their boards was by and large considered acceptable.