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Vinod Mathew

Ahmedabad , Nov. 25

THE Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), which has taken on the lead role in resolving the impasse that has arisen after the Common Admission Test (CAT) questions were found to have been leaked, was a scene of intense deliberations on Tuesday.

And the B-schools are gearing up to show the sceptics how well prepared they are to face any eventuality when it will make it clear on Wednesday that there is always a contingency plan in the form of an alternative set of questions up its collective sleeve for use in the face of such mishaps.

However, it will be up to the directors of the IIMs to jointly give the nod to whatever the Chairpersons of the Admissions Committee meeting on Tuesday have decided. It is understood that the decision would involve the modalities of getting the 137 examination halls in 26 cities ready once again and it is only after this that the 1.27 lakh students can be intimated about the date for the re-examination.

Talking to the media, Prof Bakul Dholakia, Director, IIMA, said that his reiterated statement about the non-involvement of the IIMA faculty stood vindicated. "There was no chance of any leak having occurred at IIMA as the double-locked boxes containing the question papers were opened only at 8 a.m.on Sunday. The date of the retest will be announced after the directors of the six IIMs meet here on Wednesday," Prof Dholakia said.

Even as news of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) absolving its faculty of any involvement in the scam trickled in, the professors of the country's premier B-school reiterated their resolve to represent to the Centre to keep the Ministry of Human Resource Development from trying to meddle with the admissions programme.

Once the government gets to tinker with CAT programme, as has been made evident by the Ministry ever since it began demanding a postponement of CAT till April 2004, it will be the beginning of the end of a great institution, summed up a faculty member.

One major argument against the top IIMs such as Ahmedabad has been that it is elitist and charged a hefty fee, but that clearly, is not the source of the corpus that it has been able to build over the last few years. The flip side is that this fee added up to only tenth of what was charged by comparable management institutes worldwide while the IIM students commanded salaries as good as the best in the world.

Going Online

The IIMs are working on going online with their entrance examinations. In all likelihood, this format will be tested and ready for use for the academic year 2005, it is reliably learnt.

It is a project that the IIMs have been working for quite a while now and apparently this is what has been irking the Ministry officials.

Once it goes online, like the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT), there will be very little chance for the repetition of such scams.

Meanwhile, the batch of 2004 may find themselves a little late to get into their respective campuses, as the new academic year at the IIMs normally start in July.

However, this delay is likely to be not more than two-three weeks, if at all.

Even a couple of weeks' hold-up in the entrance examination will not be a big setback as the IIMs would have ample time to meet the February deadline for the group discussions and interviews.

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