AHMEDABAD: The board of governors of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, has decided to increase the fees for the two-year Post-Graduate Programme in Management by Rs. 23,000 to Rs. 2 lakh per annum from the next academic year.

For the one-year advanced course for senior-level executives, the first batch of which passed out of the IIMA only this year, the fee structure has been further revised at Rs. 14 lakh per annum from the 2008 academic year. For the next academic year, the IIMA has already hiked the fees at Rs. 10 lakhs per annum from Rs. 8 lakh charged for the first batch students.

The board, which met here on Saturday under the newly appointed chairman Vijaypat Singhania, also discussed the Supreme Court's stay order on the reservation for the Other Backward Classes and decided to go ahead with next year's admissions without introducing the reservation unless the apex court vacated its stay by April 12 or there were specific instructions from the Union Human Resource Development Ministry by then.

Dr. Singhania and the IIMA director, Bakul Dholakia, said the board deliberated on the fee hike issue and unanimously decided to raise it by a meagre Rs. 23,000 from the present level of Rs. 1.77 lakh per annum. He said the cost of education per student for the PGP works out to Rs. 4 lakh per annum.

The board decided to recover half of the amount from the students with the remaining half to be met by the institution's income from various other sources. Prof. Dholakia, however, refused to accept any grant from the government pointing out that the IIMA was no longer a grant-in-aid institution and could meet its expenses from its own internal resources.

Prof. Dholakia said with the increase in the fees, the amount for the need-based scholarships would also go up to ensure that the students coming from economically weaker background did not suffer in education due to funds. The IIMA fund for the need-based scholarships had also been raised from Rs. 50 lakh to Rs. 1 crore for the next academic year.

The IIMA director agreed that the fee structure as far as possible should be uniform in all the IIMs in the country and said some efforts in this regard would be made when the directors of all the six IIMs meet the next time. The issue of 50 per cent subsidy to all the PGP students irrespective of their economic background would also be considered.

Prof. Dholakia said the board was also informed of the IIMA's new laurels — included in the top 12 business schools in the world for excellence in short-term executive courses for 2005. The recognition was awarded by the London-based Economist Intelligence Unit and the IIMA had turned out to be the only business school from Asia to figure in the list.

The IIMA, he said, had also been approved for accreditation by the Equis, the European group of business schools.

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