New Delhi: The public institutional character of Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) is proposed to be reshaped by the Union Human Resource Development (HRD)minister Kapil Sibal. In his current meeting with chairpersons and director of IIMs, he took a series of inter-linked decisions which would effectively transfer the control of these institutions to private donors. This decision is based on report of three committees which was already constituted in 2010. Decision have made with the aim of shaping up the IIMs system which help it to meet with the future competitive challenges.
All three committees that support privatization having existing chairpersons or directors of various IIMs were appointed by the HRD minister only. The three reports that were presents join support for privatisation of IIMs are changing the basic structure of their existing memorandum of association (MoA). None of this committee consults with any stakeholder before presenting their reports.
As per sources, before declaring the statement, the HRD minister hasn’t consulted with any IIM faculty, the industry or the alumni. Even at the time of meeting no stakeholder, academia, industry bodies and civil society were present in there. Neither did they collect any ground data, or record the views of past chairpersons /directors of IIMs or eminent educationists to confirm the verdict.
Moreover, in the report, they also proposed for the new governance structure and reconstituted IIM society for running the institute as an enlightened owner (equivalent to a person having an equity stake in the company) and by suggesting that the most effective way of bringing this about is by making the payment of a substantial donation to the IIM as a condition for becoming a member of the society.
The reconstituted society got chance to practice all the powers and ratify the appointments of the chairman, members of the board of governors (BoG) and director of the institution. The BoG gets the powers to manage institute on behalf of the society and the director will function as the chief executive officer (CEO).
The BoG report states: The practice of board members representing different interests should be given up. It also creates major changes in the existing MoAs of the IIMs. Till now, the committee provides no validation that how the recommended dispensation (payment of donations) make the reconstituted societies more 'enlightened' than the existing ones. These statements are quite confusing as they did not potrating the clear picture of matter.
The issue can get bigger if equity stakes direct the IIMs as a commercialization will destroy their public role & character. Same if changes were made in the multiple stakeholder representational character of the BoG as per suggestion of the committee will strikes at the root of the concept of public institution. The second formed committee on faculty and research will deals with a number of issues such as meeting faculty shortages, use of technology, leverage faculty resources, faculty productivity, etc.
In the reports, most of the suggestions are in the form of prejudiced views without any chance of argument or supporting data.
