The new Bill will give more autonomy to the institutes and allow them to offer undergraduate courses as well.
The premium institute of the country—Indian Institute of Management—will now be able to award degrees to its students. The IIM Bill was finally passed by the Parliament on Tuesday, 19 December, 2017.
The new Bill will give more autonomy to the institutes and they will be able to offer undergraduate courses as well with the approval of the All India Institute of Technical Education, in addition to postgraduate degrees. The IIMs currently offer postgraduate diplomas in management. An MBA degree, recognised by global universities, will allow IIM students to pursue further studies in international institutes.
The Bill will enable the IIMs to offer differentiated undergraduate courses in economics and liberal arts.
The Bill declares 20 existing IIMs as institutions of national importance and aims to grant more autonomy in their functioning with little interference from the Union Human Resources Development Ministry.
“The Bill offers autonomy to these institutes, removing all interference from the Government and bureaucracy in the functioning of the IIMs. They will themselves decide how to manage and run these premier institutes,” Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar, said while initiating a discussion.
Under the new provisions, the board of governors will be the executive body of each IIM, comprising up to 19 members. It will nominate 17 board members including eminent persons, faculty members and alumni. The remaining two members will be nominees from the central and state governments, respectively.
The board will appoint its own chairperson and the director of each IIM, respectively. A search committee will recommend names for the post of the director. The director is eligible for variable pay, to be determined by the board. The institutes will be free to fix the tuition fee.
A coordination forum will also be set up, which will include representation from the 20 IIMs, and will discuss and decide on issues of common interest to all IIMs.