Given their role in nation-building, IIMs were declared ‘institutions of national importance’ by the Ministry of Education after passage of IIM Act 2017.
IIM Act 2017 also awarded autonomy to the IIMs for fee regulations apart from selection and removal of the chairperson and director, student intake, and institute expansion. With this autonomy of IIMs, government and bureaucracy have no intervention in the day-to-day and even strategic operations of IIM.
The IIMs with significant fee increase include old (Lucknow, Calcutta and Bangalore) as well as new IIMs (Jammu, Tiruchirappalli, Sirmaur, Nagpur, Udaipur, Rohtak). The fee increase ranges between 3% (Rohtak) and 36% (Lucknow), averaging 13%.
There already exists a difference in fee structure between old and new IIMs, which is further widened due to the current fee hike. With the fee hike in 2020 for the academic year 2020-2022, the average fee in old IIMs is 20.7 lakh rupees, whereas that in new IIMs is 13.7 lakh rupees.
