‘A’ will help other IIMs to help needy

The Union Human Resource Development Ministry has asked the Indian Institute of Management (IIMA), Ahmedabad, to help the other five IIMs cr...

The Union Human Resource Development Ministry has asked the Indian Institute of Management (IIMA), Ahmedabad, to help the other five IIMs create and administer a need-based scholarship (NBS) fund.

IIMA is not only the oldest of the IIMs, it has been running an NBS fund for several years. So it will be able to help the others estimate how much they need to set aside yearly for the fund.

A team from IIMA will conduct a training programme for the admission committees of other IIMs.

Story continues below

this ad

The IIMs at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, and Calcutta have also agreed to forgo grants from the ministry. They say they are comfortably off with corpus funds of Rs 98 crore, Rs 85 crore, and Rs 80 crore respectively, so the ministry could channel their grant money to smaller IIMs at Lucknow, Kozhikode, and Indore.

A source at IIMA said the key to making the NBS viable is not to let disbursal wait until admissions are over.

‘‘The inherent weakness was that NBS was operated after admission, and the student — however poor he is — has to deposit Rs 50,000 as the first semester fee on the day of admission,’’ said the source. ‘‘Now we plan to have selected candidates know even before they are admitted how much scholarship they are entitled to receive.’’ He said full scholarships were available to students from families with annual income less than Rs 1.5 lakh on submission of documentary proof. Students poorer than that, with no proof to offer, will have to intimate the institutes.

Under the new scheme, IIMA expects to spend some Rs 50 lakh in scholarship for some 40 students admitted this year.

Story continues below this ad

About the other IIMs, the source said: ‘‘We expect IIMB, IIMC, and IIML to have 40 students seeking scholarships, and IIMK and IIMI 25 each. The allocation from the ministry for IIMK, IIML, and IIMI should be around Rs 90 lakh.’’

In another step to make IIMs more accessible to poor students, the CAT committee, which met in Goa on Wednesday, has decided to slash the price of CAT application forms to Rs 1,000 each. They now cost Rs 1,100 if purchased from a bank, and Rs 1,200 if purchased from an institute.