Studying at the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) is going to be costlier with two institutes -- IIM-Calcutta (IIM-C) and IIM-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) -- hiking fees for the two-year postgraduate management programme (PGP) by Rs 100,000.

The other IIMs, IIM-Bangalore, IIM-Kozhikode, IIM-Lucknow and IIM-Indore, are also expected to decide on fee hike at their board meetings in early March.

IIM-C announced it would hike its annual fee for the first year to Rs 300,000 from Rs 200,000 and for the second year to Rs 400,000 from Rs 200,000.

Last year too, the premier institute had increased its fees from Rs 175,000 to Rs 200,000 per annum.

This means students at IIM-C will have to shell out Rs 700,000 for the 2008-10 PGP batch, compared with the current Rs 400,000.

However, students seeking admission to the 2009-2011 batch will have to pay Rs 800,000.

Commenting on the fee hike, IIM-C Director Shekhar Chaudhuri said, "The decision to raise the fees was taken in view of the rising costs and will be implemented from the coming academic session.

The hike has been attempted at helping the institute meet growing expenditures, while providing students better opportunities and improved facilities."

IIM-A has already hiked the fees for its two-year postgraduate management programme to Rs 300,000 per year, starting from the 2008-09 batch, from Rs 200,000.

Besides, the premier institute will also increase fees for the postgraduate programme in management for executives (PGPX) from Rs 10 lakh (Rs 1 million) to Rs 14 lakh (Rs 1.4 million), starting from the 2008-09 batch.

IIM-Bangalore is also likely to raise the annual fees from Rs 250,000 to Rs 275,000 per annum. The institute had increased the total course fee to Rs 500,000 from Rs 350,000 last year.