The Hindu : `No rationale in IIMs charging high fees'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 06, 2004

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`No rationale in IIMs charging high fees'

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 5. The Union Human Resource Development Ministry's decision on the fee structure of the Indian Institutes of Management, announced today, came after weeks of speculation and a hue and cry as many from the IIM fraternity saw it as an "encroachment" on the institutes' autonomy.

However, with the Memorandum of Association of the IIMs giving the Central Government an upper hand, the administrative heads of the institutes apparently gave in at a meeting convened here last week.

The Ministry's contention is that there is no rationale in the IIMs charging between Rs. 1 lakh and Rs. 1.5 lakhs a year when they are fully-funded technical institutions and the "financial requirements are met through the Central Government budget." Now, all the IIMs will have to charge a uniform fee unlike the prevailing scenario where IIM, Ahmedabad charged Rs. 1.5 lakhs a year while fees at the other five institutes were lower but still ran into six figures.

The Ministry has cited the Supreme Court judgment in the T.M.A. Pai case that "an educational institution cannot charge such a fee as is not required for the purpose of furthering the object."

Also, it has taken on board an observation made by the U.R. Rao Committee for Revitalising Technical Education, which said that "it is unjust and even unwise to make technical education unaffordable to capable but poor students."

Now that the fee issue has been settled, the Ministry is moving on to the second round of the debate with the Minister, Murli Manohar Joshi, stating today that the IIMs would also be asked to double their student intake in the near future.

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