The Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C) has increased the fee for its two-year post-graduate programme to Rs 9 lakh. The Rs 4 lakh increase, applicable from this session, comes a year after the increase in fee by other IIMs. IIM-C is also increasing its need-based scholarship fund and stipend for research scholars. Shekhar Choudhuri, the instiute’s director, who recently won the Bharat Asmita Acharya Shrestha Award 2009 for his work in management education, tells Pradipta Mukherjee that the institute is remodelling its campus to bring it on a par with international standards and meet the increased load due to quota implementation. Excerpts:

What prompted you to raise the fee?
The fee hike would have been implemented last year had the committee led by RC Bhargava, former CEO of Maruti Udyog, not asked all the IIMs to ‘withhold’ any proposed rise in fee. But costs have been escalating. We require around Rs 4 lakh per student per year. The fee hike will help us break even if that cost remains the same. Our new batch which will join from academic year 2009 will have to pay Rs 9 lakh for the two-year PGP course (Rs 4 lakh in the first year and Rs 5 lakh in the second year). The current batch, which will be promoted to second year in 2009, will have to pay Rs 4 lakh for the second year. The students in this batch will pay Rs 7 lakh for two years (Rs 3 lakh in the first year and Rs 4 lakh in the second year). The fee was Rs 5 lakh till the 2007 batch. The fee hike was essential, as the cost of operations have been increasing year-on-year. The fee for international students has not changed and foreign students will continue to pay $20,000 a year or $40,000 for the two-year course.

IIM-C had certain doubts about the Bhargava Committee's report.
Parts of the report seemed to lack clarity and that had led to reservations about accepting the recommendations. However, Bhargava and IIM-Calcutta Chairman Ajit Balakrishnan, met recently and cleared the faculty's doubts. Now, the faculty will discuss the report and submit relevant recommendations by April. Some of our doubts were regarding the pan-IIM vote and whether it would be binding on IIMs. Another doubt was regarding freedom for academic activities. At the recent meeting, we sought these clarifications and the Committee explained that the pan-IIM body is a facilitating body and not a controlling body.

How equipped is IIM-C to implement the OBC quota?
We have increased the number of seats for the 2009-11 session, from 304 to 407, to accommodate the quota structure. The Board of Governors has requested the Ministry of Human Resources Development for an increase in the number of faculty posts. We have 88 sanctioned faculty seats, but we have to increase it to 120 to ensure that the teacher-student ratio is maintained at 1:10. Construction is on at the campus and there will be 19 new classrooms of different sizes, as well as new hostels, conference rooms etc.

What is the status on placements?
We sensed a slowdown and hence have invited more companies this year from various sectors like fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), manufacturing, public enterprises, among others. We also realise that a lot of financial institutions and banks, which are traditionally the biggest recruiters at IIM-C may not turn up or may recruit fewer students this year compared to earlier years. There will also be a drop in the number of offers per students. Recruitment began on February 21 and will continue till February 24. The second phase will resume from March 3 for two-three days. Around 265 students registered have registered for recruitments, which have been pre-poned by two weeks.

What are the institute’s focus areas?
We are focussed on the Rs 200-crore campus expansion and remodeling project. This will give the campus an international look. The investment will also take care of the 54 per cent expansion in capacity required for accommodating the 27 per cent OBC quota. The campus will then be handle handle the increased number of faculty and students.

We are also intent on increasing the number of research scholars passing out from the institute. We are providing them with world-class facilities so that quality of research can be enhanced. We are also concentrating on international accreditation. IIM-C will seek certificates from the Association of Advanced Collegiate School of Business (AASCB). We wiil also seek the European Quality Improvement System label from the European Foundation of Management Development (EFDM). Till April 2008, nearly 550 institutions had been accredited by the AASCB, of which 96 are outside the US. Over 110 institutes had been accredited by EFMD in 33 countries till June 2008. International accreditation will help us gain better global access and aid us in forming alliances with international institutes. The accreditation will also help the institute attract more foreign students and open up increased opportunites for tie-ups with foreign universities.

Any support plans to encourage research projects?
For students, we have increased the stipend for our PhD programme by 100 per cent, in order to attract more researchers to the institute. The new stipend policy will provide Rs 20,000-24,000 per month and a Rs 20,000 annual contingency grant. The students are also provided a one-time grant for field study, a laptop grant and a fully-supported international conference attendance anywhere in the world. We are also making provisions for students to attend more international conferences. On an average, more than five students attend foreign conferences a year.

For the faculty, IIM-C will extend support for research programmes and enable them to get away from routine administration work. We have increased the minimum fund available for faculty use five-fold to Rs 1 lakh. The fund could go up to Rs 5 lakh. Large research projects undertakken by the faculty can get funds of up to Rs 10 lakh per project. We are also making provisions to send around 50 faculty to international conferences for more participation each year.

This year, we have already received 350 applications for fellowships, up from 150 applications last year.

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