The Hindu Business Line : Autonomy has a price, if you're ready to pay

MUCH ink has been spilt over the IIM fee issue. Protests to Joshi's drastic cut are vocal while there are only feeble voices that support the move. Profs and b-students, columnists and CEOs, lawyers and courts are all seized of the problem.

Strangely, it was only about a month ago that students in Chennai were protesting a hike in exam fees, from Rs 45 per paper to Rs 58, and arrears fee from Rs 45 to Rs 85. For post-graduate students, the fee had been increased from Rs 100 to Rs 150.

"The hike would affect students belonging to economically weaker sections," it was argued by the students' union that threatened a joint protest by students of all city colleges if the government did not withdraw the hike.

"Students were also upset as they were asked to part with Rs 90 as contribution for renovation of the university's Senate House." The varsity VC tried to reason that the fee hike was not steep, and that it was only Rs 25 that was to be given along with exam fee for renovation. Also that there was a steep reduction of fees for obtaining a consolidated mark sheet - from Rs 1,000 to Rs 120.

However, within about a fortnight, "bowing to pressure from students," the fee hike was suspended, and it was announced: "For the present set of students, the status quo ante will prevail.''

Be that as it may, reports and voices on the IIM imbroglio advocate uniformly a minimum government role in financing these institutions. From an academic angle, the idea of progressively moving towards full cost recovery in post-graduate as well as management development programmes makes great economic sense.

But good economics does not always translate into appropriate politics. Give a social angle and the picture distorts. If distortion you must have, why stop at Rs 30,000? Give it away free, and spread the goodies thin, and in the process destroy a brand that took decades to build. That doesn't seem to be unlikely, given the vagaries of the netas. After all, a good manager knows when to form a company and when to wind it up, so take heart.

Which takes us to another track of thinking. Let the government wash its hands of the IIMs and allow them to go public. Given their reputation, shares would trade at a high premium, and people would be interested in having an IIM share certificate, if not eligible for its MBA degree certificate.

For the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) too, there is a similar problem. The wolves are outside the ICAI gates, they say, and all those pious CA lambs shiver inside. There is no budgetary support for the ICAI, unlike as in the case of IIMs, and for the babudom they would have to tolerate, the sop would be in the form of statutory recognition for CAs in tax and corporate law.

Now, having shown the accountants a big stick of a bad Bill, the government can do well to hang a carrot, by offering them total freedom from direct control of the Department of Company Affairs, so that the Institute has total autonomy in funding and operations, staffing and travel.

In consideration, however, they would cease to enjoy the monopoly that is bestowed to them through statutory recognition. So, tomorrow, if an American or British body of accountants sets up a branch here, and produces CAs of comparable quality, they too would qualify for empanelment and appointment. Too costly a price for freedom?

E&OE@thehindu.co.in

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