Education Ministry defends IIM-A Fee Hike

Questions were also raised on the capabilities of IIM-A to generate a surplus in excess of INR 75 crores every year while the academic fees is INR 105 crores. 

IIM Ahmedabad fee hike was questioned in Lok Sabha recently. Commenting on the hike in IIM-A fees, Manish Tewari, Congress MP from Anandpur Sahib asked, “whether the fees in Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) have risen 575 per cent in 15 years (from 2007) while the inflation index growth for the same period has only increased 146 per cent”.

Answering the question, Subhas Sarkar, Minister of State for Education said that the institute has generated a surplus of INR 47 crore in 2021-22. He added, “There has been an increase in the total tuition fee of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) over the past few years.”

Investment increased by INR 136 crore from the financial year 2019-20 to 2020-21

Quoting the official data released by IIM Ahmedabad, Sarkar said “total tuition fee in the financial year 2006-07 was INR 17.00 crore for 326 students of PGP & PGPX programmes. This was INR 105 crore for 590 students of PGP & PGPX programmes in 2020-21.”

He also added that the cumulative investment was INR 1,345 crore as on March 31, 2021 and the investment increased by INR 136 crore from the financial year 2019-20 to 2020-21. “These corpus are inter alia, used towards construction/ upgradation/ maintenance of the main campus, which is more than 60 years old,” he explained.

The government was also questioned if IIM-A will generate a surplus in excess of INR 75 crore every year while the academic fees is INR 105 crore, and if that is the case then whether the “yearly increase in fees reflect lethargy of the board that refuses to challenge a yearly norm nor understands the raison d’etre of public institution.”

Sarkar revealed in the Lok Sabha that the surplus generated by IIM-A in the years 2020-21 and 2021-22 were INR 51 crore and INR 47 crore, respectively.

Board of Governors (BoG) of IIM-A decides fees to be charged for courses

“The IIM-A is governed under the Indian Institutes of Management Act, 2017. The Board of Governors (BoG) of the Institute decides fees to be charged for courses of study. Further, the institute maintains proper accounts of income and expenditure, internal audit reports, including statement specifying investments and other relevant records, accounts audited by the CAG and annual accounts of the institute along with audit report are laid before the Houses of Parliament,” he added.

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