Soaring inflation forces IIM-A to increase fees by 5%

Persistently high inflation has forced the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), to increase fees for its various courses by a little more than 5%, the third hike by the premier business school in the past three years. With this, the fee for the institute’s flagship programme, the post-
graduate programme in management (PGP), is Rs 14.45 lakh for the batch 2011-13.

The PGP fee stood at Rs 13.7 lakh for the academic term 2010-2012. It was Rs 11.5 lakh in 2008-10 and was raised to Rs 12.5 lakh in 2009-11.
Another important course the institute offers is a one-year programme in management for executives (PGPX), which will now cost Rs 20.31 lakh. It has been increased by about Rs 1 lakh.

“We had to hike the fees to meet the increasing cost caused by high inflation. However, this rise is still roughly half the inflation rate,” IIM-A director Samir Barua said.

The business school does not receive government funding to run its programmes because such financing is limited to developing infrastructure for accommodating students under the other backward classes quota.

The institute says the expansion of facilities to accommodate OBC students will be completed in 2011-12 for the PGP and 2012-13 for the PGPX.
The new fee structure for various programmes was approved in the meeting of the board of governors on Saturday, just before the 46th convocation presided over by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

During the NDA regime in 2003-04, the union HRD ministry under Murli Manohar Joshi had cut fees by almost 80% for the PGP.

However, the earlier fee structure was restored under persuasion from prominent thinkers when Arjun Singh took charge of the ministry after the UPA came to power.

Source: hindustantimes.com