IIM bill will reduce the B-schools to operating centres: Naik

Strongly protesting against the controversial IIM draft bill, Chairman of IIM-A Board of Governors A M Naik today said the move will not only curtail autonomy but will reduce the premier B-schools to mere "operating centres" and give the Centre "sweeping powers".
Naik also claimed the Bill is having provisions which gives majority of powers to the government leaving almost nothing for the institute to decide.
"As per the provisions of the Bill, we need to take prior permission of government in matters related to admissions, courses, fee structure, establishment or maintenance of new building and regulating powers of academic council," Naik said.

"Further, we will be required to take government's permission if we want to form a new department in the interest of institution, as if expertise for this is available elsewhere rather than with the institute.
"Thus, nothing much is left for us. It is like operating here but the control is somewhere else," said Naik, who is also the Executive Chairman of engineering and construction giant Larsen and Tubro said.
"The Bill gives sweeping powers with the government, making the institution only an operation centre, with all the major directions, diktats and approvals happening from Delhi. There will be no autonomy left with us if this bill will be implemented," opined Naik.

"After nine months of silence, government suddenly floated this new draft, which we saw just few weeks back. It really caught us by surprise. The original bill, which was approved by IIMs and MHRD, has been completely changed, and rather made even worse than the original draft," Naik claimed.