AHMEDABAD: The admissions to the regular two-year postgraduate programme in management (PGP) in the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, scheduled to be finalised by Saturday, has been postponed indefinitely.

The admissions have been put on hold, under a directive from the Union Human Resource Development Ministry, in view of the Supreme Court stay on the implementation of reservation for other backward classes (OBCs) in the IIMs and other Central professional institutions.

IIMA director Bakul Dholakia, due to leave for Delhi on Friday morning to attend a meeting of the directors of the six IIMs with the officials of the Union HRD Ministry, postponed his visit in view of the directive received late on Thursday night, but remained incommunicado with presspersons throughout the day.

A brief communication posted on the IIMA website advised the students short-listed for admission to periodically visit it for further instructions on the admission. It said that in view of the Union Government directive on the reservation issue, pending before the Supreme Court, the IIMA had decided to postpone the publication of the final list of admissions.

The directive issued by the Joint Secretary of the Technical Education Department in the Union HRD Ministry, Ravi Mathur, to all the six directors of the IIMs show that the Centre had taken a very strong stand on the earlier "unanimous decision" of the institutions to go ahead with the publication of the list of admissions on April 21, irrespective of a decision on the reservation quota.

The announcement made by Prof. Dholakia on April 12 on behalf of all the six IIMs stated that all the directors had "unanimously decided" to publish the final list on April 21 even if the Centre failed to get the issue resolved or the apex court vacated the stay by that date.

The IIMs had said postponing the process by nine days was the "maximum stretch" the institutions could offer without totally disrupting the next academic year.

The IIMA, and other five IIMs, had wanted to go ahead with the admissions on the basis of last year's intake capacity, which was 1,500 seats in the six IIMs, including 250 in the IIMA. Prof. Dholakia had maintained that the IIMA would finalise the list by Saturday putting on hold the admission for the additional 17 seats under the reservation quota for the OBCs and consequently postponing the expansion by 34 seats in the institutions as per the agreement it had reached with the Centre earlier.

The directive issued by Mr. Mathur made it clear that all the IIMs were required to adhere to the Ministry's April 5 instructions to put the admissions on hold "till further orders."

Since the Centre had not yet issued any fresh instructions, the earlier order to postpone the admissions still hold good. The directive clearly implied that the Centre had not taken the IIMs' decisions to go ahead with the admission process minus the reservation quota kindly.

The Government directive said all the Central institutions "aided, funded or established" by the Central Government need to adhere to its order to postpone the admissions "till further communications in this regard."

It said that it shared the "concern" of the institutions, but pointed out that it was taking all steps "to facilitate admissions of all sections of the students at the earliest."

Apparently the hint was at the petition filed before the apex court for reviewing the stay. The plea was scheduled to come up for hearing on Monday.

Bangalore Staff Reporter reports:

The Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) has also put on hold the admission process for its postgraduate programmes, following the Ministry directive. Offer letters will now be sent to the selected candidates only after the Supreme Court hears the quota stay issue.

In a statement, the IIMB said it "regrets to announce that the offer of admission to successful candidates for PGP 2007-09 batch will be made only after the underlying issue is resolved."

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