The government's efforts to set up six new Indian Institutes of Management have been marred by resistance from some of the existing ones which are not keen on the idea of mentoring the new institutes, forcing the government to set up a committee to evolve a suitable module for the purpose.
The HRD ministry has set up a three-member committee comprising IIM Ahmedabad director Prof Sameer Barua, IIM Kolkata director Prof Sekhar Chaudhury and IIT Kanpur Director Prof S G Dhande. It will submit its report to the ministry in a month's time, highly placed sources in the ministry told PTI.
The move comes after some of the existing IIMs expressed resistance to the idea of mentoring the new IIMs and help set up the institutes.
However, the ministry was not happy with the response of the IIMs and set up the committee with the mandate that it will submit a suitable formula for setting up of the new IIMs.
The government has decided to set up six IIMs in Tamil Nadu, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Haryana. Accordingly, it had prepared the plan that the existing IIMs would mentor the new IIMs in the same fashion as the old IITs mentored the new ones.
However, some progress has been made in setting up of the IIMs in state of Haryana and Tamil Nadu where the government has identified the buildings for operation of the B-schools.
The proposed IIM at Rohtak will temporarily function at a building constructed by the Haryana government for setting up a polytechnic.
Similarly, the proposed institute at Trichy will function at the building of the Bharathidhasan university there.
The ministry expects that the committee will come up with acceptable formula so that the IIMs will come forward to help set up the new institutes.
The IIM-Review committee, which studied the functioning of the existing IIMs, had recommended that the old institutes should mentor the new ones.
The committee has said that the new IIMs should be under the control of the existing IIMs initially, which could help them learn from the experience of the old institutes in shaping their future.
In the process of their growth, the existing IIMs have the experience in various areas, including designing of campus to planning courses and managing faculty.
If the new IIMs are started as separate entities, they will have to engage separate architect for designing the building and other structures. But if they are managed by the existing IIMs, there will be proper coordinated efforts to design the campus, thereby saving the cost and help in better planning, the committee has said.
