HRD Minister Smriti Irani sets out 13 point agenda for IIMs

The Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Zubin Irani, on Sunday set out a 13 point agenda for the IIMs on bringing their management expertise in various areas including National Development Goals.

Addressing the IIMs' Conclave with Chairpersons and Directors of 13 Indian Institutes of Managements (IIMs) here, the HRD Minister asked Chairpersons and Directors of IIMs to come up with strategies for making the country both manpower ready and teacher ready. She said that along with IITs, IIITs and Central Universities, the IIMs should create a mechanism for a Global Talent Pool of eminent persons, who could then contribute their expertise not only to IIMs but to other institutions in the country as well.

She said the IIMs should create a knowledge consortium, based on efforts by IIM Ahmedabad, by bringing together various institutions so as to make possible ideas like credit transfer and twinning programmes.

The interaction focused on issues related to national development goals, admission process in IIMs, review of the institutes, National Ranking Framework for the management institutions, ICT and other pedagogical innovations and initiatives to scale up research in IIMs especially the socially relevant research as also to have greater impact on national policy implementation.

The Union Minister asked the IIMs to develop a special programme for students of the North-Eastern states on the lines of a similar programme developed by IITs, called Ishan Vikas.

Irani said that IIMs needed to work with local industries and local communities with a view to enhance their management capacity. She also asked IIMs to contribute their management expertise to such national projects as development of Smart Cities and Green Cities;

The HRD Minister also asked IIMs to develop a framework for ranking management institutions with a view to rank institutions world over as per priorities of the developing countries as also help domestic institutions pursue academic excellence to achieve the goalposts set by the National Ranking Framework.