IIM-A increases fees Rs 50,000 from 2010-11

[nithyasubramanian]

Ahmedabad, March 29: The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, (IIM-A) has increased fees for its Post Graduate Programme in Management (PGPM) by Rs 50,000 from the year 2010-11, institute director Samir Baura said here on Sunday.

"Last year we had decided that the fee for PGPM for 2008-09 would be Rs 5.5 lakh and for 2009-10 it would be Rs 6 lakh. The board today decided that the fee for year 2009-10 for the incoming batch will remain the same," Barua said after a meeting of IIM-A Board of Governors here.

"But for the second year, that is 2010-11, the fee will be Rs 6.5 lakh, an increase of Rs 50,000. So the batch of 2009-11 of the PGPM will be paying a maximum of Rs 12.5 lakhs for the course," he said.

"But the fee waiver scheme which we had started last year will continue for the next year. There were 21 students last year who did not have to pay anything at all for the course," Barua said.

When asked about the rationale behind the hike in the fee, Baura said, "With passage of time the cost of teaching goes up. We have to account for increase in the cost of everything."

Barua said foreign universities keep on revising their teaching methods and programme. "So we too need to continue evolving to compete with them."

When asked if the increase in fees will continue on a regular basis, he said, "That we don't know. It will depend on the situation next year." The board will decide next year if there has to be another revision or not, he added.

Taking about the average fee collection, Barua said it will go down considerably as the OBC (other backward class) quota will be increased to 13 per cent this year from last year's six per cent.

"OBC applies to mainly non-creamy layer so the income levels will be below Rs 4.5 lakh per annum. Therefore large number of OBC students will be entitled for subsidies under our fee waiver scheme," he said.

Chairman of the IIM-A board of governors, Vijaypath Singhania said, "Despite the hike in fees, we are leaving large part of our increase in cost uncovered which will come from our corpus fund."

He said IIM-A will be making arrangements to accommodate additional number of OBC students, for which the central government has already committed Rs 34 crore for capital expenditure. The approximate increase in the intake of IIM-A's PGPM course this year will be 353 including the OBC students.

courtesy : Zeenews.com