IIPM to shut down all campuses October onwards

It plans to operate only in Delhi as a research and knowledge sharing institution

The Arindam Chaudhuri-promoted Indian Institute of Planning and Management (IIPM) will shut all its campuses in India by October, after its old batches finish their courses.

“We are no longer interested in directly offering education programmes to students, since the process is very complex. The series of negative campaigns also dissuaded IIPM from continuing. I would rather concentrate on imparting education via a partner, while infrastructure and degrees can be dealt with by the institute concerned,” said Chaudhuri.

He said that IIPM faculty would go to those institutes, where they have a collaboration and teach students there, as an external instructor. IIPM would not be directly giving out any certifications.

A message on the IIPM website said from 2015, it had entered into technical collaborations with various institutions in India and had stopped taking admissions. “All IIPM campuses now only have old students and these campuses are being shut down as and when old batches finish their courses,” said another message on the website.

“The aim is to provide our edge in economics, entrepreneurship, leadership and strategy to lakhs instead of thousands through knowledge partnerships with hundreds of institutions,” Chaudhuri said.

IIPM had 18 campuses all across the country. He said that the last batch will pass out in October 2015, post which they will no longer offer any course. The campuses were on rent.

However, IIPM will be operative in Delhi as a research and training institutions. Chaudhuri said that the training will be imparted only to corporates or institutions who enter into a technical collaboration of knowledge sharing with IIPM.

In May 2015, there were reports that the Delhi Police had registered an FIR against Arindam Chaudhuri based on a complaint by the University Grant Commission (UGC). However, he maintained that they have been targeted and that they had never claimed to offer degrees or claimed to have been recognised by any statutory body, adding that this was an old issue.

Chaudhuri said that they have already tied-up with Ishan Institute in Noida and Aurora Institute in Hyderabad for partnering as a technical collaborator of knowledge.

Further, in 2014 too, IIPM said that they are planning to seek a review by the Delhi high court of its verdict that restrains IIPM and its management from using words like MBA, BBA and B-school for courses. Here, Chaudhuri said that courses like MBA, BBA are out of the question because we have never claimed to offer these, since they don't offer any degrees.

In 2013 too, IIPM raised eyeballs when 73 URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), which were critical of IIPM, including some of their own blogs, had been ordered to be blocked. This was the first incident of its kind wherein an educational institution had gone to court and secured an order to restrict certain content.

Consequently, the Department of Telecommunications directed the Internet Service Licensees to immediately block 73 URLs (not websites) containing anti-IIPM content. These included the University Grants Commission (UGC) page with guidelines on IIPM, links carrying such content on newspaper, consumer forum and satire websites, as well as online news portals.

All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), UGC have maintained that IIPM is not recognised and IIPM also features on the AICTE black-list of institutions. Founded in 1974, New Delhi-headquartered IIPM offers programmes in management education.  AICTE regulates B-schools which provides a two-year post graduate programme in management. Further, if an institute is not recognised by UGC, it cannot offer a degree programme in India.

The bone of contention between AICTE, UGC and IIPM is that the institute has continued with its operations in spite of not getting an accreditation.