IIMs gearing up to accommodate quota needs

Ever since the Supreme Court upheld implementation of 27 per cent OBC reservation in Central Education Institutions (CEIs), the need for sufficient infrastructure in terms of faculty, classrooms and residential blocks has been troubling the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs). With the new academic year having begun, some IIMs have expedited the expansion process at their campuses.

However, not all of them have been able to expand within the first three years of the decision, thereby forcing them to defer the full quota implementation. IIM, Calcutta (IIM-C), for instance, which is still in the process of expanding class rooms and residential blocks at its campus, has decided to admit 375 students as against 408 last year.

“We are in the process of constructing classrooms and residential blocks that can accommodate 462 students in all after a 54 per cent expansion in seats. But that will only happen next year. Since work on the expansion of infrastructure got delayed, this year we are able to admit only 375 students as against 408 last year. Nevertheless, the expansion work is expected to be completed by September this year,” says Shekhar Chaudhuri, director of IIM, Calcutta. The institute is investing close to Rs 150 crore for setting up additional classrooms and residential blocks, among other things.

On its part, IIM Ahmedabad (IIM-A) was able to complete some of the expansion work just recently. With the institute admitting 380 students — including 103 in OBC category — IIM-A recently built 300 new residential blocks at an investment of Rs 30 crore.

Meanwhile, IIM Kozhikode (IIM-K), which had fully implemented the quota requirements last year itself, aims to continue with the same batch size this year. However, the institute is still in the process of creating another 200 beds, which will be ready in two months. At a batch size of 313 for PGP 2009-11 including 60 OBC students, IIM Kozhikode was able to implement the 27 per cent quota implementation for OBC category, while for the 2010-12 batch, the institute is admitting around 319 students.

“We had fully implemented the reservation requirements ahead of all other IIMs when we scaled up the batch size to 300, with 120 extra students. This year we have continued with the same batch size,” says Anand Unnithan, chairperson-admissions at IIM-K.

IIM Bangalore (IIM-B), which will be expanding the number of seats from 366 to 375, including 101 for OBCs, is well poised as far as infrastructure is concerned. “We had taken up the expansion work much earlier and are well placed in terms of availability of classrooms as well as residential blocks. We are confident that we will be accommodate everyone post the 54 per cent expansion in seats,” said Subhashish Gupta, outgoing chairperson - admissions, IIM-B.