After the Indian Institutes of Management Bill, 2017 got approved by President Ram Nath Kovind on December 31, 2017, the IIMs across the country are all set to hold talks within themselves and with the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to arrive at uniform regulations to govern their functioning.
“With the passage of the IIM Bill, it’s immediately required that we all sit together and put in place common norms for all the institutes so that we are not too different from one another. The discussion and consultation process will begin at once,” a senior official at IIM Bangalore told Indian Express.
While IIM directors had met recently in December to discuss issue of common interest, the premier B-schools are yet to study the Act in detail to understand its implications.
“A lot has already been initiated. There have been both video conferences and personal meetings with the HRD minister and the MHRD secretary. All the IIM directors have met in August 2017 at IIM Bangalore and in December 2017 at IIM Lucknow to discuss issues of common concern,” G Raghuram, director of IIM Bangalore, told Business Standard.
“Apart from this, all the IIM directors are in constant communication with one another,” he added.
According to the new IIM Bill, the Board of Governors (BoG) of each institute shall be the principal executive body and will appoint a chairperson from amongst eminent persons distinguished in the field of industry or education or science or technology or management or public administration.
The BoG will constitute a search-cum-selection committee comprising the chairperson and three members from amongst eminent administrators, industrialists, educationists, scientists, technocrats and management specialists.
The BoG of each IIM will comprise a chairperson, one nominee each from the Centre and the state government, four eminent persons (including a woman) distinguished in the field of education, industry, commerce, social service or public administration. Two faculty members, one member from SC or ST sections and up to five persons co-opted from the alumni or who are members of the society of the existing institute would also be members of the Board. There would be at least three women members.
With the new IIM Bill, the IIMs will have more autonomy with a limited role of the government in their operations and will have the power to award degrees instead of diplomas to their students.
The new law that was passed in the Lok Sabha in July and in Rajya Sabha in December last year, grants statutory powers to the IIMs in their running, functioning, including recruitment of directors and faculty members.
“The bill offers autonomy to these institutes. Through this bill we will remove all interference of the government, bureaucracy in the functioning of the IIMs. They will themselves decide how to manage and run these premier institutes,” HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar had said in the Rajya Sabha last month.
