There has been an increase in the total tuition fee of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A) over the past few years, said Subhas Sarkar, Minister of State for Education in the Lok Sabha Monday. He added that in 2021-22, the surplus generated by the institution was Rs 47 crore.
The minister was replying to Manish Tewari, Congress MP from Anandpur Sahib, who had raised a question about the rise of fees at IIM-A. He had questioned “whether the fees in Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) have risen 575 per cent in 15 years (from 2007) while the inflation index growth for the same period has only increased 146 per cent”.
To this query, Sarkar said Monday that according to the data provided by IIM-A, the “total tuition fee in financial year 2006-07 was Rs 17.00 crore for 326 students of PGP & PGPX programmes. This was Rs 105 crore for 590 students of PGP & PGPX programmes in 2020-21.”
He also added that the cumulative investment was Rs 1,345 crore as on March 31, 2021 and the investment increased by Rs 136 crore from the financial year 2019-20 to 2020-21. “These corpus are inter alia, used towards construction/ upgradation/ maintenance of the main campus, which is more than 60 years old,” he explained.
The government was also questioned if IIM-A will generate a surplus in excess of Rs 75 crore every year while the academic fees is Rs 105 crore, and if that is the case then whether the “yearly increase in fees reflect lethargy of the board that refuses to challenge a yearly norm nor understands the raison d’etre of public institution.”
Sarkar revealed in the Lok Sabha that the surplus generated by IIM-A in the years 2020-21 and 2021-22 were Rs 51 crore and Rs 47 crore, respectively.
“The IIM-A is governed under the Indian Institutes of Management Act, 2017. The Board of Governors (BoG) of the Institute decides fees to be charged for courses of study. Further, the institute maintains proper accounts of income and expenditure, internal audit reports, including statement specifying investments and other relevant records, accounts audited by the CAG and annual accounts of the institute along with audit report are laid before the Houses of Parliament,” he added.
Courtesy : The Indian Express