The Hindu : `IIM Calcutta not against fee cut'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Mar 31, 2004

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National

`IIM Calcutta not against fee cut'

By Our Staff Reporter

KOLKATA. March 30. If S.K. Dube, director of IIT Kharagpur is correct, the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, will reach a conclusive decision on the proposed fee cut by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development by the next board meet on April 3.

Mr. Dube was brought into the board by the Ministry two days prior to the March 26 meeting.

Mr. Dube, who became the director of IIT Kharagpur during the tenure of Murli Manohar Joshi as HRD minister, today told newspersons that the 22-member IIM board "was not against the fee cut per se.

However, a section of them representing the views of the faculty members did express concern over issues related to autonomy.''

Refusing to accept the arguments that the fee cut was designed to infringe upon the autonomy of IIMs, Mr. Dube said, "that IITs accept only Rs. 24,000 as fees when considered to be one of the finest technical institutions in the world, shows that there is no relation between fees and excellence."

He said, "there is little logic as to why in a country like India, proposals to reduce fees should invite controversy.''

Supporting the views that such institutions should be funded by the Government and enjoy autonomy within an outer limit set by the Government, he said, "I believe in IIT Kharagpur, which is heavily funded by the Government, we enjoy more autonomy than IIMs.''

On views that the dependence on the Government had created financial crisis for IITs, he said, "IITs instead have enough reserves and no IIT is suffering from fund crisis.'' IIT Kharagpur in particular had even put in place a 10-year perspective plan underlining substantial investments.

Mr. Dube had also denied the popular belief that the alumni contributed substantially towards IITs. At IIT Kharagpur, Rs. 150 crore was given by the Government, Rs. 70 crore to Rs. 80 crore came from the industry. "Alumni brought a mere Rs. 5 crore to Rs. 10 crore in the last 10 years. They rather act as a interlink between the institution and the outer world including the industry.''

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