IIM-C to implement OBC quota in coming session

Indian Institute of Management-Calcutta (IIM-C), will implement the final phase of quota reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in the 2011-2013 batch, increasing the latter’s strength to 460 students.

“We will implement the OBC quota (entirely) from the 2011-2013 batch slated to begin in June, increasing strength from the current 400-odd to 460,” said Shekhar Chaudhuri, Director.

The quota implmentation is part of the 2008 directive from the Supreme Court, where it upheld the 27 per cent quota for OBCs in higher educational institutes which receive funding from the government, bringing the total percentage of reserved seats in such institutions to 49.5 per cent.

Besides the 27 per cent reservation to OBCs, a total of 22.5 per cent seats are reserved for scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs), of which the SCs enjoy 15 per cent and STs enjoy 7.5 per cent reservation, respectively.

The increased system of quota implementation, which came under fire three years earlier from all quarters, was accepted after the SC judgement.

The IIMs had arrived at the decision to implement the quota system in a phased manner. With the implementation this year, IIM-C would have completed this requirement.

“After this increase, which is quite a significant number, we will not be increasing student strength at least in the next few years, given especially the fact that we need time to integrate the increased strength,” Chaudhuri said.

OTHER PROGRAMMES
IIM-C is also planning to increase the batch size of the two one-year executive courses, e. the Post-Graduate Programme for Executives (PGPEX) and the Post-Graduate Management Programme for Executives in Visionary Leadership for Manufacturing (PGPEX-VLM).

“Our goal is to increase the size of the PGPEX batch strength from the present 60 to 120 students over the next two years, and the size of the PGPEX-VLM programme from the present 35 to 60,” the director said.

Chaudhuri said these plans were part of the larger ambitions the institute harbours and would bear fruition only after the completion of the executive hostel that is currently under construction.

These courses are offered by IIM-C, the oldest in the IIM system, as part of its strategy to provide training to working executives besides the institute’s two-year flagship Post-Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM), the MBA-equivalent.

Also, while the institute has no plans of increasing fees for the two-year PGDM, it is set to increase the fees for the PGPEX-VLM programme. “We will raise the fees for PGPEX-VLM from the current Rs 7 lakh to Rs 9 lakh. Besides this, we are not looking at increasing fees again this year,” Chaudhuri said.