The government doesn’t seem to be able to keep its hands off the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). As this newspaper has reported, the ministry of education is considering a proposal that will empower it to initiate an inquiry against the board of governors (BOG) of any of the 20 IIMs, if it is found to violate the IIM Act. The heads of the institutes are alarmed, rightfully so, at this clear move to encroach on the autonomy guaranteed to the IIMs almost three years ago by the very same Act. The most recent standoff between the government and the IIMs involves its one-year programme. The IIMs call it an MBA degree, as is the global norm in many business schools. But the mighty UGC rulebook says only two-year programmes deserve that term. This illustrates the kind of tussle over trivialities that bureaucratic systems expend energies on, almost by reflex.
This tug-of-war has played out before. In 2015, the ministry under Smriti Irani was involved in a tussle with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on the matter of government role in the elite institutions. At the time, the PMO had pushed back against the ministry’s plans to give itself sweeping powers over the IIMs, and underlined the need for autonomy on various fronts, from scrapping the President’s role as “visitor” of the IIMs to the composition of the board and regulation of the fee structure. Thankfully, the PMO’s views prevailed. In 2016, almost a year later and with a new minister, Prakash Javadekar, in charge, a new draft of the law gave wide powers to the IIMs, with an internal system of checks and balances.
