By IANS
New Delhi : The Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) Wednesday maintained that the fee hike it announced last week will not be reviewed and its officials told Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh that there would be enough provision for scholarships for needy students.
Senior IIM-A officials, including institute governing council chairperson and industrialist Vijaypat Singhania, met Arjun Singh and told him that the institute’s corpus for scholarships would be increased from Rs.4 million to Rs.85 million a year.
They argued that the fee hike would not affect a larger class of students, especially the poor.
“We have told the minister that despite the fee hike we announced recently, our institute would provide scholarships to 62 percent of the students joining IIM=-A,” Singhania told reporters.
Singh said while he did not want to interfere with the IIM’s decision, he wanted to know how they expect the poor to pay the fees.
“I do not want to get into the IIM’s autonomy. I am only concerned about students of weaker sections and poor students,” he told reporters.
“The HRD ministry would not review the fee hike of the IIMs as the minister was convinced that scholarships would be given to those students who cannot afford to pay the fee,” said a senior ministry official.
“The minister was convinced by our explanation,” Singhania added.
The IIM-A Saturday announced hike in its fees from Rs.4,50,000 to Rs.1.15 million for a two-year post-graduate programme while the IIM-Kozhikode Monday increased its fee from Rs.3,85,000 to Rs.600,000.