Following the footsteps of the Indian Institute of Management Kolkata, IIM Lucknow has decided to hike its fees from the coming academic session.

"With the implementation of the sixth pay commission and in view of increasing operation cost, we are planning to hike the fees being charged from the students for two-year course from the new academic session," IIM-L Director Devi Singh told PTI on Tuesday.

Prof Singh pointed out that as compared to other IIMs in the country, the Lucknow campus was already charging less fee from the students.

"While IIM Ahamdabad is charging Rs 11 lakhs (Rs 1.1 million), our fee for the two-year course is only Rs 5 lakh, which is the lowest in the country. Even IIMs at Kozhikode and Indore are charging Rs 600,000," he said.

While IIM-A hiked its fee in the last academic session, IIM-K recently announced to increase its fee up to Rs 900,000.

Singh said that the hike percentage would be decided after assessing the financial situation of the institute.

The move to hike fee is being made following the Centre's decision to stop bloc grant to the institute. "The Centre was extending bloc grant to ABC institutes for a period of five years. As we started getting the grant from 2004, our time is ending in the current fiscal," the director said.

Meanwhile, the IIM-L also plans to increase number of seats and faculty from the new academic session.

At present, the student strength of the institute is 370, which it plans to increase up to 420 by next year.

It also plans to add 10 qualified teachers in its existing faculty this year.