Quota Stay Bottles up IIMs Core Plans

Quota Stay Bottles up IIMs Core Plans

The Supreme Court’s stay on 27% OBC quota in central educational institutions seems to have poured uncertainty over IIMs’ plans for infrastructure expansion and admission. While all IIMs have decided to comply with the ministry of human resources development (MHRD) directive on the date of the final admission list, confusion reigns supreme.

As some analysts put it, this is a management chaos and the worst nightmare for India’s higher education system! The government’s directive on implementation of the reservation called for expansion of the existing infrastructure across IIMs. This expansion was expected to be spread out over three years, the same period as the implementation of the reservation.

Each IIM was likely to get Rs40-50 crore from Centre to fund this expansion. According to IIM Bangalore director Prakash Apte, the institute did not need any extra funds to carry out expansion plans for this year, has the quota been imposed. “But now with the Supreme Court ruling, the infrastructure expansion has been put on hold for this year.”

Will the new ruling change this? Will the students who are finally admitted, have to make do with inadequate infrastructure? Only time can answer these questions. On the other hand, IIM Calcutta acting director Asim Pal said that the institute would proceed with its expansion plans. “In any case, the money that was being given by the government was extremely inadequate, but we are not letting that stop us. Our expansion will be funded largely by our corpus. Being the oldest IIM, infrastructure upgrade was long overdue.” An IIM-C source said the lack of clarity on the quota issue could lead to complications. “Unless the issue is settled, how do we know how much we should scale the infrastructure up by.”

20 New IITs Planned - 7th IIM in Shillong:

The MHRD has submitted a proposal to set up 20 new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to the Planning Commission, its annual report for 2006 - 07 said. The Planning Commission has suggested that new IITs could be considered under public-private participation, the report stated. The government will set up the seventh IIM at Shillong, the report said. Two new schools of planning and architecture are proposed to be started at vijayawada and Bhopal. In addition to the existing Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) at Gwalior, Allahanad and Jabalpur, a new IIIT (design and manufacturing) has been approved to be set up at Kanchiputam in Tamil Nadu, the report said.

IIM Lucknow director Devi Singh said that expansion has started in a small way as in the construction of hostels. “But for the rest of it, we will have to wait for word from the NHRD. If the quota is put on hold for this year and no money is sent, where will we get the funds for the expansion?” An IIM Ahmedamad spokesperson, too, MHRD. The Institute incidentally, had earlier, spoken about paucity of land for expansion and had asked the Gujarat government for land.

“For the first year, we had plans to accommodate the students within out existing infrastructure. In the wake of recent developments, any new decision on infrastructure expansion will be taken by the director and the board of governors after receiving the MHRD’s directive,” said the spokesperson.

IIM Indore director S P Parasher was the only one to state that the institute has received funds for expansion from the Centre. “The original idea was reservation as well as capacity expansion. Construction has begun and out plans will proceed as per schedule”.

Email: Sreeradha.basu@timesgroup.com

Quota Stay Bottles up IIMs Core Plans

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