IIM-A cannot hike seats: Dholakia

"IIM-A in a massive expansion plan has increased its seats from 180 in 2002 to 400 by 2007. At this juncture our plate is totally full," he said.

The central government is working out a formula to increase the number of seats as well as educational institutions to ensure that the students from the general category were unaffected while implementing the proposed reservation for OBCs.

Dholakia, however, declined to give his opinion on the reservation issue. Speaking about the available infrastructure at IIM-A, Dholakia said all programmes offered by the institute are resident ones and it spends around Rs 3.5 lakh per student every year to accommodate and educate them. "We require hostel facility to accommodate each student in the institute," he added.

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In 2002, IIM-A increased its intake from 180 students to 280. In 2005, it started a one-year MBA programme with an intake capacity of 60 students, which will be increased by another 60 in the next academic year, he said.

"We also have plans to start a course of management for bureaucrats with 50 seats," he added. The Alumni Association of IIM-A had on Thursday opposed the Centre's proposed reservation policy for OBCs.

Its president Amol Dhruv had said reservation in institutes of higher education would have an adverse impact on the psyche of the future generation.