Mr Joshi, we don’t want your help

They have donned battle fatigues and are readying to guard their ground — India’s elite management institutes — against gover...

They have donned battle fatigues and are readying to guard their ground — India’s elite management institutes — against government interference.

There is chagrin nationwide among elite alumni, students and IIM administrators at the noises for a government role in the six Indian Institutes of Management.

	ALUMNISPEAK

			• The IIMs need the best teaching talent, the best guest faculty and the best facilities. They should raise money by a market-based fee-structure, not by depending on the government. — K.V. Kamath, MD and CEO, ICICI Bank (IIM-A, 1971) • The moment the fee structure is reduced, the institutes would be dependent on outside aid, thus reducing their autonomy’ — B.K. Chaturvedi, MD, Hindustan Motors (IIM-A, 1971)

Union Human Resource Development Minister Murli Manohar Joshi wrote to the IIM directors two weeks ago, suggesting that they charge only Rs 50,000 per year against an average Rs 1.5 lakh.

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But money, say those from IIM, simply isn’t a factor. ‘‘We ensure that nobody has to go back due to the lack of financial resources,’’ says IIM Bangalore director Prakash Apte. The institutes help students get finances for the course, and even offers a tuition-fee waiver on merit-cum-need basis.

IIM students, present and prospective, have been calling up The Indian Express since to scoff at the suggestion that this concession is needed at all.

‘‘I don’t mind paying a premium of upto a hundred per cent on the fees that I am currently paying,’’ says Saikat Sengupta (24) of IIM-Ahmedabad.

‘‘We get 24-hour internet, 18-hour library service, good living conditions and excellent faculty,’’ says classmate Gaurav Gupta (24).

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Besides,‘‘education loans are easily available and IIM students are easily capable of repaying them once they pass out’’, says Yaquta Mandviwala of IIM-Calcutta. Last year, the average salary of an IIM graduate was pegged around Rs 40,000 a month.

‘‘There is a misconception that the IIMs are elitist organisations,” says Ingrid Srinath, director, resource mobilisation, CRY. Srinath passed out from IIM-C in 1986. “The average IIM graduate is not the son of a celebrity, nor does he come from a rich family. People who go to the IIMs are essentially from middle class, upper-middle class families with salaried backgrounds.”

‘‘It makes me extremely nervous abut giving the government any more role in the running of the IIMs,’’ says Srinath.