Make us IIMAutonomous

The authorities of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA)  vociferously articulated  their demand for autonomy during the institute's 45th annual convocation ceremony.

Speaking on the occasion, chairman of the board of governors of IIMA, Vijaypat Singhania, referred to the contribution of C Rangarajan in fighting for deregulation in the fiscal field and said, "We all can see the emerging benefits of loosening the strangulating controls that governed our system."

To Rangarajan, he said, "Sir, if it can work in the fiscal field, which it did, I want to suggest we give it a shot in the field of education as well. Let the government free it from the strangulating controls that it is tied down in, at all levels."

He said, "We need greater economy in functioning and running these great temples of learning. The foreign universities bill proposed by the government would provide the same freedom of operations to the foreign academic institutions as provided to the private domestic academic institutions in the country. If this were to happen, without the public academic institutions being unshackled from the government restrictive controls, then these institutions (government academic institutions) would not be able to compete with better known foreign bodies."

Expressing similar views, director of IIMA Samir Barua said, "IIMA aspires to become a global management school. It is time for the government and the larger society to set it free from all government controls so that it can compete without its hands being tied against the foreign B-schools that are allowed entry to India."

A total of 424 students including 17 students of Fellowship Programme in Management , 283 students of Post-Graduate Programme in Management , 19 Post-Graduate Programme in Agri-Business Management students and 80 Post-graduate Programme for Executives among others.