By IANS
Ahmedabad : Bakul Dholakia, the outgoing director of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Monday advocated granting functional autonomy for institutions such as the six IIMs to enable them to compete with their foreign counterparts.
Talking to reporters here on the eve of demitting his office, he said: “Our institutions of higher learning and higher education will be pitted against foreign institutions which are being allowed entry into India. We need a level-playing field to sustain ourselves and further achieve successes matching global standards.”
“There will not be a level-playing field if there is no operational, administrative and financial autonomy for our institutions to improve on our excellence and meet the competitive challenges that lie ahead. I am convinced about it”, Dholakia said.
He said a policy of ad-hocism and keeping institutions on a tight leash will not help. Autonomy was necessary also to attract high-quality faculty for teaching.
Dholakia said the autonomy plan that was sent to the human resource development (HRD) ministry in 2004 was evolved after extensive consultations with the IIM faculty. That there had not been any progress on the issue will remain a “disappointment” for him, he said.
But he was more than happy when he considered the growth made by the premier business school in the five years of his directorship.
Dholakia said the student strength of the institute had gone up from 1,491 in 2002-03 to 2,682 in 2007-08. The institute’s income had shown an overall increase of 460 percent with revenues totalling Rs.840 million compared to Rs.180 million five years ago.
The various activities – like building global educational partnerships with foreign universities, successes achieved in the area of executive education, the launch of an innovative one-year MBA programme that had not yet been attempted anywhere else – have all consolidated the IIM-A’s position among the global league of top business schools.
“This was my vision when I assumed charge as director five years ago and I am happy that substantial success has been achieved,” he said.
Moreover, the quality of physical infrastructure at the IIM-A has also improved. Prior to 2002 the annual capital expenditure on infrastructure creation was about Rs.30 million, while the capital infrastructure incurred in the last five years amounted to Rs.1.25 billion, he said.
Dholakia, who completes five years as IIM-A director Tuesday, said he will continue teaching at the institute after demitting office, just like all his predecessors. “This is a healthy tradition that has been nurtured in the institute,” he said.
According to institute sources, the IIM-A governing body headed by Vijaypat Singhania had approached the HRD ministry to give Dholakia an extension of 90 days but the ministry did not favour the suggestion.
“The governing body had appealed to the ministry but they did not listen to it. The professors, staff and media know it well that the HRD ministry does not have good relations with our director and they do not want him to continue,” said a senior IIM-A official on condition of anonymity.
“He was appointed for a period of five years. He took charge of the post of director on Oct 10, 2002 and officially his tenure ends on coming Wednesday. They (ministry) did a simple thing by not renewing his appointment period,” the official said.
Though Dholakia is relinquishing office Wednesday, the ministry is yet to find his successor.
The ministry has short-listed S.K. Barua and G. Raghuram, two senior professors of the same institute, to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) for final selection, according to IIM-A sources.