By Devashish Jain, University of Petroleum and Energy Studies.
Years after its first proposal, the government has finally made it mind to bring in a legislation that will be dealing with the Indian Institutes of Management. By the virtue of this bill, the government seeks to bring all the 13 IIMs under the ambit of this future legislation.
Key highlights of the Bill:
- Degree instead of Diploma: As per one of the major changes in the functioning of the IIMs, from the date of the passing of this bill, these institutes will provide an MBA (Master of Business Administration) degree rather than a diploma. The main purpose of this is to overcome the hurdles that are faced by the Indian students while studying abroad or getting a job in a foreign nation. Till now for conducting research in any field by an alumni of IIM in a foreign nation, it is a mandatory to get a certificate from the institute stating that the said diploma hold the same value as an MBA Degree.
- Curtailment of autonomy: The second main aspect of the said bill is to curtail the autonomy of the Indian Institutes of Management; as per this bill the role of the Central Government will increase to a greater level and they will have a major say while deciding the fee structure, service conditions of Faculty, curriculum and the academic structure of these institutes.
Insight
This new bill contains a procedure for appointment of the Chairperson as he/she will be appointed by the HRD ministry. As per the prescribed procedure, the previous process has been overthrown, by the virtue of which the board is to give three names for the said purpose and HRD ministry is to select one of these.
Even in various regulations made by the board now are subject to the approval of the Central Government.
The concept of the Coordination Forum has been brought into picture where by various institutions will be interconnected to share their experiences, ideas and concern about various topics of capital importance to enhance the performing capacity of these institution to a greater level.
The main critics of this bill are the 400+ business schools that provide post graduate diploma and in case these 13 IIMs will be providing degrees rather than diplomas, it will have an ill effect on the remaining private business schools, even though some of them are competing with the top IIMs.
Whether there is a need for this Bill?
As per this new bill, greater governmental control will be coming into the picture despite the lack of evidence of the need to do so. Generally, all the IIMs are financially stable and are successful in raising the funds needed.
Recommendations to the HRD ministry
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- Strong and strict guidelines for the Act of the Human Resource and Development Ministry and moderate amount of autonomy to the board to take reasonable steps for development.
- The Act must be subjected to redrafting and amendments and the same should go hand in hand with the PM view of ‘Minimum Government and Maximum Governance’ and ‘make in India’.
- A subcategory of the navaratna institutes should be created and substantial the level of autonomy should be given to them so that they can progress to a much greater level.
View of Government
Government has the view that the process of enacting this bill will bring a form of standardization among all the IIMs and will bring IIM Udaipur on the same footing as of IIM Ahmedabad, thus raising the standards of all the IIMs on the whole.
Author’s view
The author is of the view that the present bill will be more of a burden rather than an idea to change the current scenario of IIMs. Bringing the government into the picture will only delay all the administrative work to a greater level, in return hampering the growth of such institutions. Live example of the procedural delay could be seen in pensions, all the individuals who were doing government jobs were entitled to pension but the pension department is controlled by the government itself, instead of outsourcing it to any private entity they kept the control in their hands and now anyone can see the delays in getting pension from the government.