SHILLONG: The IIM Act 2017 which came into effect from January 31, 2018 will give complete functional autonomy to all the 20 IIMs in the country, informed leading industrialist Shishir Bajoria who is also the Chairman of the Board of Governors, IIM Shillong.
Bajoria called the 2017 Act a path-breaking one as the government has relinquished its hold on the IIMs. “This Act is a fulfillment of the Modi government’s mandate of ‘Less government, more governance’,” he said.
The Act declares all the 20 existing Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) as institutions of national importance and confers on them the power to grant degrees including PhDs. Earlier, IIMs could only grant postgraduate diplomas.
Under the new Act, the Board of Governors will be the executive body of each IIM, comprising up to 19 members. There will be three women members from different walks of life and one of them must be a member of the Scheduled Tribe/Scheduled Caste.
The Board will nominate 17 board members including eminent persons, faculty members and alumni. The remaining two members will be nominees from the central and state governments respectively. The Board will appoint its own chairperson.
The Board of Governors will appoint the director of each IIM. A search committee will recommend names for the post of director who is eligible for variable pay, to be determined by the Board.
The Academic Council of each IIM will determine the academic content, criteria and process for admission to courses and guidelines for conduct of examinations.
A coordination forum will be set up, which will include representation from the 20 IIMs. It will discuss matters of common interest to all the IIMs.
The new act empowers the IIMs to make their presence felt globally by allowing them to open campuses within the country and abroad. Ten thousand students of the 2016-18 and 2017-19 batches of all the 20 IIMs would now be awarded MBA degrees instead of Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) or PGPM. The next batches taking admission from 2018 onwards will also be conferred an MBA degree.
The IIM Bill was under active consideration and elicited a lot of debate and discussion. The IIMs’ flagship diploma programmes will now be called MBAs. This will remove handicaps experienced by students earlier while seeking higher studies abroad. Earlier an additional certificate had to be attached by IIM students when they went for higher studies abroad that the diploma awarded by the IIMs is equivalent to an MBA degree.
The IIM Act 2017 has removed this anomaly and this has brought about much cause for cheer, as the MBA degree the students will be awarded will by top universities across the world. This also means better placement opportunities in global companies.
The new Act will boost the prospects of the newer IIMs which will now be able to attract better faculty as the pay and perks will now be decided by the Board of Governors and not by the government. This will enhance their performance and enable them to attract the full intake of students.
Dwelling on the fee structure, Professor Amitabha De, Director, IIM Shillong said, “Every IIM is to decide their own fee structure to make themselves viable but no student who has gained entry into our institute shall suffer on account of finance. We have a need-based assistance scheme from the money we set aside from our income. But such a student must be able to furnish all details that he or she is from a deprived background”, adding that the fixing of fees is a complex game as the market has to be kept in mind. On salary for faculty, Professor De said now with better salaries the newer IIMs will be able to attract the best faculty and this will also bring about a healthy competition among the IIMs.
Speaking about IIM Shillong, Bajoria said the institute will be shifting to the new campus in three phases of which the first phase will be in two months time. “IIM Shillong will be the pride of the country and will shape up as the best campus. We will stress on sports facilities which will include a gymnasium and wellness centre. We will also have our own convenience store making the institute completely independent.”
Professor De also informed that IIM Shillong has been having 100 per cent placement since the day the first batch of 66 students graduated. Recently Cognizant picked up 21 IIM Shillong alumni. “This is a matter of great pride for IIM Shillong,” he said.
It may be mentioned that IIM Shillong was started in 2007 and its annual golfing event under the Chief Minister’s Golf Trophy is a huge attraction. Says Bajoria, “I was pleasantly surprised to meet 50 golfers from outside the country coming to play here only because of the attraction of Shillong. People are even surprised that we have a Cherry Blossom festival here.”
