Review Committee asks IIMs to put on hold fee hike

New Delhi, Apr 21 (UNI) The government today said the IIM Review Committee had asked all the Indian Institutes of Management to put on hold increase in fee hike and keep it at the level of December 2007 till it submitted its final report.

In a written reply in the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari said the committee, headed by R C Bhargava, had submitted an interim report to the government on April 4 this year to ask all the IIMs to defer any hike in fee and keep it at the level of December 2007 (Rs 3 lakh or less as the case may be) till such time it submited its final report.

The minister said the report had been forwarded to all Chairmen of IIMs. She also informed that only the IIM, Ahmedabad had increased the fees of its first year (2008-09) Post Graduate Programme (PGP) of Management by 175 per cent -- Rs 5.50 lakh from Rs 2 lakh for First Year and Rs 6 lakh from Rs 2.30 lakh for Second-Year.

She said the maximum cost of a PGP course in the IIMs would be Rs 11.50 lakh from the next academic session and this would be in case of IIM, Ahmedabad.

Similarly, the fee structure for IIM, Bangalore is Rs 4 lakh for the first year and Rs 5 lakh for the second year while for the IIM, Kolkata, it is Rs 3 lakh and Rs 4 lakh respectively.

The two-year programme in IIM Lucknow will cost Rs 5 lakh (Rs 2.50 lakh per year), and in IIM Kozhikode, the cost will come to Rs 6 lakh (Rs 3 lakh each year).

She said the IIMs had agreed to provide need-based scholarships to the students. Easy bank loans were also being provided by the Banks.

The decision to raise the fee from the next academic session 2008-10 was recently taken by the Board of Governors of the six IIMs.

The IIMs had hiked the fees for the PGP for the academic session 2008-10, citing the increase in the operational expenses of the programme and the financial impact of the recommendations of the Sixth Pay Commission as the main reasons.

Replying to another query, she said moves were on to permit online tests for the IIMs, similar to the US examinations like GMAT and GRE, for handling the huge number of students appearing for the test every year.

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