SHILLONG: The IIM Shillong is set to lose the prefix Rajiv Gandhi as per the Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2017.All the IIMs in the country will be known by the name of the city like IIM Shillong or IIM Kolkata, as per the Bill. Following the clearance of the Bill by the Union Cabinet, it was introduced in Parliament on Thursday.As per the Bill, while the existing name is Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management Shillong, a society registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 (21 of 1860), the name of the institute incorporated under the new Act is Indian Institute of Management, Shillong.
Except Rajiv Gandhi IIM in Shillong, none of the other 19 existing IIMs in the country has any prefixes.Besides IIM Shillong, there are no changes in the names of other IIMs as per the 2017 Bill except for a minor change of name from Calcutta to Kolkata for the IIM in that city. It was during the Congress-led UPA regime in 2004 that a decision was taken to set up the seventh IIM in Shillong.
Following this, the state leadership of the party had suggested that late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s name be added to the IIM in Shillong and subsequently the Centre agreed to the idea.On December 1, 2007, the then Union Human Resources Development Minister, Arjun Singh, laid the foundation stone of the institute in Shillong.In fact, when UDP-NCP (now NPP) coalition was in power in 2008, the need to rename the Shillong IIM was discussed in the Assembly.Curiously, it was the Congress member and current Cabinet Minister Prestone Tynsong, who on April 21, 2008, during a discussion on the Governor’s address pointed out that the other IIMs in the country were not named after any personality and the seventh IIM, the Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management, should be known as IIM Shillong.
