Why new IIM Bill will spell the doom of IIMs

To attract and build a high-quality pool of researchers, students and faculty, which is essential to achieve global excellence, the Indian Institutes of Management need to be given the necessary autonomy in managing their academic affairs and administrative matters. The latest version of the IIM Bill, however, reduces the autonomy of the IIMs and enhances the oversight by the central government to a level that may hamper the pursuit of global excellence. While IIM Bangalore accepts there is a need for a framework of accountability, we believe that it should not be at the cost of institutional autonomy.

We at IIM-B have had many consultations and submitted to the MHRD, government of India, specific suggestions on redrafting sections and clauses of the Bill so that our functional autonomy is not eroded. We have also suggested specific changes in the language and phrasing of certain sections and clauses in the Bill.

On the subject of regulation by the central government, certain clauses in the Bill undermine the autonomy of the Board in deciding and implementing basic issues of the institute and its academic programmes (for example, criteria for admissions, appointment of faculty and staff, and institutional and administrative affairs), and we suggest removal of phrases such as "with the approval of the central government" from sections 36 and 3(k).

We have also suggested specific changes in the nature of qualifying the wide ambit of the language in Section 21 of the present version of the Bill.

With rising competitiveness and agility in institutions of higher education across the globe, the need and relevance of high-level coordination can be debated. There are three generations of IIMs as of today, which are at different stages of their lifecycle, and therefore would require different levels of support with respect to - infrastructure; faculty resources; finance; and programmes of different focus and emphasis. It is therefore important to allow each IIM to flourish on the basis of diversity in their core strengths, location advantages, accumulated experiences and specially developed competencies.

In addition to being quite unwieldy to coordinate across the 19 IIMs that exist as of today, excessive coordination and standardisation across the IIMs may, in fact, also be counterproductive in terms of encouraging high performance. Where required, there is coordination among the IIMs even today and each institute is free to coordinate with a group of institutes that have similar focus and interests and on common areas of concern. For example, the IIMs successfully coordinate across the institutes for the common admission test (CAT). Furthermore, the central government has many participatory fora and effective measures of encouraging coordination and collaboration amongst institutes of national importance. Therefore, with reference to Section 30(2), in our opinion, there is no further need to establish a special coordination forum as part of this Bill.

While we are very supportive of the objective of the IIM Bill, as laid out in its preamble, which is to help the IIMs achieve global excellence, it must be understood and acknowledged that in order for the IIMs to achieve the Bill's objective, they need adequate resources to build capacity and significant autonomy to shape their strategy. We hope the government will craft the Bill in a way that it grants requisite autonomy to the IIMs so they can actually pursue and achieve global excellence.