Can IIMs really increase student intake?

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Students from medical colleges and other professions gathered at Azad Maidan in Mumbai on Saturday to support the union government for the proposed hike in quotas for OBC's in the medical colleges. (PTI photo)


DELHI/ KOLKATA: The crucial issue for the government as it works out ways to offset the impact of increased reservation by increasing seats in education institutions, is whether individual institutions are in a position to increase their student intake.

Consider the IIMs. The IIM-A announced that it would not increase its intake, as its “hands are full”. If the reservation quota bill is taken up and passed by Parliament in the next session, then IIM-A will have little option but to adhere to the law.


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Medical students participate in a candlelight vigil to protest against the government's reservation policy in Mumbai on Saturday. (AP Photo)​



The Group of Ministers need to work out a viable solution that will ensure that institutions do not face a crisis. The formula of staggered reservation matched with commensurate increase in seats will need to keep in mind infrastructural and fiscal capabilities of institutions.

IM Calcutta will, however, increase seats for the full time post graduate programme from the 2006 academic session — the number of seats will increase from 265 to 335 for its Post-graduate Programme in Management (PGP). Sources say this increase was planned earlier, and will not exempt IIM-C from increasing its seats as per the requirements of the proposed reservation quota bill.

According to Dinesh Varma, chief administrative officer and secretary, IIM-C: “We had been thinking about expanding our programme for quite some time now. We had the resources both by way of the space and the corpus to increase the size, and made plans accordingly. The hike in the number of seats was made accordingly.”

In March, IIM-Bangalore director Prakash Apte had said that IIM-B would increase its intake from the present level of 250 students to 280 in 2006, and to 300 in 2007.

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1540044,curpg-2.cms
 
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