Govt allows IIMs to have foreign campuses

In a step that would give more autonomy to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) today gave freedom to the premier management institutes to open centres in India and abroad. The ministry had earlier indicated that it may allow the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and IIMs to set up campuses abroad once they improve their faculty positions. It had turned down a proposal of IIM Bangalore to open a campus in Singapore. MHRD did not agree to the proposal on the grounds that the Memorandum of Association of IIM Bangalore did not empower the institute to open campuses abroad.

“We have been thinking about going international but there is nothing on the table as of now. However, this opens the door for the IIMs and the Asian and African countries are of interest to do so and there are various ways of going international, not only through an MBA,” said an IIM director, after the IIM directors met HRD Minister Kapil Sibal here today.

However, the IIMs already face faculty crunch and though the approved faculty-student ratio is 1:9, the ratio is 1:11 at IIM Ahmedabad, 1:13.4 at IIM Bangalore and 1:15 at IIM Kozhikode.

“We will have to recruit faculty in the foreign campuses and though faculty shortage is there, the new IIMs will have more problem,” the director added.

Also, caution must be exercised when going about this issue as the institutes’ brand is also at stake. “Everyone is conscious about their brand and no one will go international just for the money,” said IIM Lucknow Director Devi Singh.

In the meeting, the ministry also gave full powers to the boards of IIMs to create posts within the approved norms, amend the rules of the IIM within the framework of Memorandum of Association and Rules, power to acquire and dispose property not fully or partially funded by MHRD, powers to approve their own budget, and also to manage the funds generated by the IIMs on their own.

Sibal, however, said the autonomy should go hand in hand with accountability; in that the faculty, the director and the board should take steps to prepare annual action plans and key performance indicators at each level and be fully accountable and transparent.

It was also decided that the number of board members of IIMs would be reduced to 14 and that the IIM societies should have long-term members who take continuous interest in running the institutes. The suggestions were given by the R C Bhargava Committee that said that IIM directors would now be appointed through a process wherein the board of governors of the IIMs suggested three names to the government from which the government chose one.

On the second report of the Committee on Faculty and Research at the IIMs, headed by IIM Calcutta Chairman Ajit Balakrishnan, MHRD decided that the IIMs could top up the salaries of their directors also in addition to the faculty from the funds generated by them on their own and that old and new IIMs sit together to streamline the use of technology for class scheduling, attendance and marks compilation.

On the recommendations of the committee on fund raising by IIMs (headed by IIM Raipur Chairman Hari S Bhartia,), Sibal decided that the IIMs had a development office especially for the purpose and that each IIM had a fund raising policy and thereafter to have road shows.