The Hindu Business Line : Taking on HRD Ministry — IIMA student leads way for Class of 2004

IT fell upon a student of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), to become the voice of 2004 batch as he joined hands with a Delhi-based lawyer and an alumni of IIM, Bangalore, to file a PIL in the Supreme Court on Tuesday seeking quashing of the February 5 IIM fee cut order by the Union Ministry of HRD.

Mr Saikat Sengupta, the PGP 2 student, told Business Line that he chose to become the voice of the student community as he came from a low- income background, the particular category that the Ministry was seeking to protect by the fee cut.

"If not me, someone else would have taken up this role as a whole lot of students from the three top IIMs have been interacting on this issue ever since the CAT re-examination issue came to the fore. I would qualify as a low-income student as my father is retired and I took a loan to cover not only the academic fees but also the mess fee. The decision came in the backdrop of the placement that will commence in a month's time," Mr Sengupta said.

The IIMA student, however, feels his stand questioning the Union HRD Ministry's decision to slash fee has been vindicated by the corporate world as he has been told by some of his potential employers that the PIL would stand in the way of his placement. This was an important feedback, he says, as the affected party in the case is the current batch and the future students of IIMs.

And the student community has made clear their verdict on the fee issue by way of internal polls at different IIMs that they were for status quo. In fact, one such poll conducted by IIMA found 90 per cent mooting for no change in fees even as 5 per cent voted for a fee hike. Earlier, Mr Sengupta had gone on record when he told this newspaper that he was all for a 50-100 per cent fee hike as the salary that IIM students stood to earn on course completion justified such a fee structure. The flip side would be a depreciated course, minus world-class facilities, he said.

"The case could not be more clinching, as here we are talking about students like Sengupta having to pay a higher fee if we win our petition. What we have questioned through the PIL is the authority of the HRD Ministry to effect a 80 per cent fee cut. As per Article 5 of the IIM Ahmedabad Society, the Central Government has no unilateral powers vested in it to such decisions without taking the other constituent, the State Government, into confidence. This has not been the case here," said co-petitioner, Mr Sandeep Parekh, who used to be a visiting faculty of IIMA last year.

According to Mr Parekh, the Ministry did not have powers vested in it to set up the Rao Committee and Mr Rao himself having admitted that IIMs and IITs were not covered in the ambit of his recommendations was contrary to the Ministry's claims. There was also the issue of bad motive, he said.

"The PIL quotes the HRD Minister, Mr Murli Manohar Joshi's, statement carried by a newspaper on February 7 where he said ` ...to say that all actions of Government are not related to votes is a poor simplification.' Just as this makes for bad motive, Mr Narayana Murthy, Chairman of the IIMA governing council and a Central Government appointee has gone on record to say that neither facts nor reason has been used to arrive at the decision of fee reduction," Mr Parekh said.

Meanwhile, the third party in the PIL, Mr Anish Mathew, alumni of IIMB, said his decision to become litigant in the case was based on his personal experience with the institution. As the IIMs were doing a good job in ensuring that deserving students did not lose out on account of paucity of funds, there was no need for the Government to go in for an across the board fee reduction, he said.

"I come from a family background where the IIM fee structure should have been a hurdle but my financial needs soon got sorted out by the institute. I got the right start by way of a merit-cum-means award worth Rs 1 lakh, based on my CAT score. This was supplemented by a Rs 75,000 fee waiver for the second year and then a similar grant for my student exchange visit to Sweden. I am not sure whether a Rs 3 lakh course fee should be the Government's consideration as the IIMs have systems in place for allocating grants to students in financial need," Mr Mathew said.

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