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Arjun Singh not to intervene in IIM fee hike issue
Published on Thu, Apr 03, 2008 at 00:28 in Nation section
Tags: Arjun Singh, IIM , New Delhi
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New Delhi: Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Arjun Singh says there is no question of intervening in the fee hike announced by the Indian Institutes of Management.
So the fee hike announced recently by IIM-Ahmedabad will remain as it is.
On Wednesday, Chairman of the Governing Council of IIM-Ahmedabad Vijaypat Singhania met Singh and assured him that the interest of the poorer students will be protected.
It seems that the rising inflation is not going to spare even the higher education.
The country's premier institutes the IIMs and Indian Institutes of Technologies have proposed steep hikes in their fee structures from the 2008 academic year.
And the HRD Minister has made it clear that he will not interfere, provided the weaker sections are taken care of.
"I have no intention of disturbing that autonomy. My only concern is that under these circumstances, what arrangements would be made to help the weaker sections and poor students," Arjun Singh said.
While all seven IIMs have proposed hikes, Ahmedabad leads the way with a hike of almost 200 per cent and IITs also want to double their fees from the current amount of about Rs 25,000 per year.
In fact the 11th plan document clearly urges the government to review the fee structure in higher education. The government has been simultaneously working on a scheme to provide interest free loans to students from the poorer sections of the society.
The schemes are in the pipeline and will take some time to materialise and so the government wants to explore the interim arrangement.
And it was precisely the agenda of the meeting the HRD Minister had with Singhania on Wednesday evening.
"We have done it purely on the basis of our costing specially taking into account the sharp increases that will take place due to the Sixth Pay Commission Report," Singhania explained.
Quite clearly the government has to do a balancing act and try to send out a message that it is concerned about the students while at the same time trying to shed some of the burden of higher education which runs into thousands of crores a year.
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