IIMA hikes tuition fees to Rs 1.77 lakh for 2006-08 batch

Ahmedabad, Apr 2 (UNI) The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIMA) today decided to increase the tuition fees for its two-year Post-Graduate Programme (PGP) to Rs 1.77 lakh per annum, a 12 per cent hike from the present Rs 1.58 lakh.

Although the hike in tuition fees was expected, speculations were rife in the media and other circles on the hiked amount.

The board of governors at its meeting here today decided to give effect to the hike for the new batch joining next month.

IIMA Chairman N R Narayana Murthy said the hike comes to 3.3 per cent per year on annualised basis over the last three years, which is less than the annual rate of inflation.

The board, which took note of the cost of education for PGP, was earlier told that IIMA spends about Rs 3.50 lakh per year on each student of PGP excluding internship and students exchange programme.

This has also been increased to Rs 3.68 lakh per student per year.

However, Mr Murthy later said that no young students would be denied admission for inability to pay and all deserving candidates would get Need-Based Scholarship (NBS) for refund of the fees, as per the family income and other criteria.

Although the board at its last meeting itself had set up a corpus of Rs one crore for NBS, it had also decided to ensure of having no ceiling on the number of students to be paid under NBS.

During the outgoing academic year, IIMA paid NBS to 97 students out of 560 students of PGP in First and Second Year combined. The NBS amount also stands to be hiked to the fee level for the new batch.

Moreover, Mr Narayana Murthy said that with the average domestic salary of IIMA graduates steadily going up, from Rs 7.5 lakh per annum last year to Rs 9.7 lakh this year, the students should not find it difficult to repay the fees.

To a question as to why subsidised fees of those who can pay, he said, the board of governors has decided to go soft on the issue and in a gradual manner, especially in the wake of former Union HRD Minister raking up the issue to bring down the fees to Rs 30,000 per year.

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