IIM-A fee up by 1 Lac

AHMEDABAD: The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) on Sunday increased the fee of its flagship Post Graduate Programme from Rs 11.5 lakh to Rs 12.5 lakh annually, citing rising cost of teaching.

With the increase, the institute has more than doubled its fee in the past one year.

It had increased the fee from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 11.5 lakh in 2008. ''The hike will be applicable to the batch of 2009-11. Students will have to pay Rs 6 lakh for the first year and Rs 6.5 lakh in the second year. The institute is continuing the subsidy scheme but may introduce minor changes,'' said director Samir Barua after the meeting of the board of governors on Sunday.

IIM-Calcutta, too, more than doubled its fee in February, to Rs 9 lakh for students joining the institute this year. The fee for IIM-Bangalore is Rs 9.5 lakh. There's a proposal to increase the fee from Rs 5 lakh to about Rs 7 lakh at IIM-Lucknow.

The increase in fee comes at a time when IIM-A is at loggerheads with the Centre over attempts to curtail its autonomy. The decision was taken by the board of governors. IIM-A has been fighting a tug-of-war with the central HRD ministers since 2004, first over fee hike with Murli Manohar Joshi when the NDA was in power and then with Arjun Singh over OBC quota when the UPA came to power.

''Although, the Central government members on our board weren't present during the meeting, we had sent them the agenda in advance,'' Barua said. ''I have not received any objection to the hike so far.''

Management Development Programmes, the main source of income for IIMs, have seen a huge downturn in the second half of the academic year of 2008-09. The placement fee charged from companies participating in campus placements has also come down.

Barua said, ''By the time the 2009 batch passes out in 2011, recession is expected to fade out and students will get competitive jobs, with which it will not be difficulty for them to pay their loans. Also, in comparison to other business schools in the country, this fee is not very high.''

The hike is also seen as an attempt by the institute to replenish its depleting corpus. Barua said the corpus was Rs 130 crore till construction of the new campus began. ''Now we are left with Rs 50 crore,'' he said.

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