“We Are Talking Reforms, Not Privatisation”

Is HRD minister Kapil Sibal facilitating a corporate takeover of IIMs with his proposed reforms? What started as a brainstorming session for restructuring the management institutes in a retreat last April has erupted into a full-blown controversy. Excerpts from Sibal’s conversation with Anuradha Raman:

Is the MHRD trying to change the institutional character of the IIMs?

For some time now, the IIMs have been saying that they don’t have enough flexibility in their functioning. So, at a meeting in October last year, certain recommendations came up for discussion to which directors and chairpersons of the IIMs were invited. The ministry was not a part of the committee and neither were the names of its members suggested by us.

Don’t the recommendations of the panels have the ministry’s blessing?

I think whatever we do we gets pilloried. When former HRD minister Arjun Singh tried to stop IIMs from hiking their fees, they called it a threat to their autonomy. Now when we are taking steps to make the institutes more autonomous, we are being accused of corporatising them. Where is this talk of privatisation? We are talking of reforms, not privatisation. Please don’t mix reforms with politics.

Is the MHRD in favour of wealthy donors getting equity in the IIMs as recommended by the Bhargava panel?

Let me clarify that, even today, IIMs have donors. But this doesn’t mean they end up having equity. The principle of people becoming society members by giving donations exists. But it does not follow that the members will become owners. You check the minutes of the meeting held with the members. I have opposed the move.

Why then are some IIMs protesting the move to reform them?

Have you spoken to all 13 IIMs? Allow me to say that this is a work in progress. We have not accepted everything recommended. The ministry has not taken any decision. The reforms are for meeting the challenges of the 21st century. I am looking at the IIMs providing management solutions in the education and health sector. I don’t see any research of that kind in the IIMs right now. Shouldn’t they be suggesting management models to meet the challenges of India?

Yet, the special secretary of your ministry shot off a letter to IIM Calcutta asking it to change the draft amendments in February at the earliest....

The official’s note has to do with changing the rules to allow the IIMs to set up their offshore campuses. It’s what they want and for that to happen, the rules have to be changed.