IIMC to play wait and watch game over OBC quota

Mou Chakraborty
Kolkata, April 1, 2007

IIMC-CALCUTTA will await the Centre’s orders on implementation of the OBC quota. Nevertheless, studying at the institute and recruiting from it will get costlier from this year.
IIM-C’s governing body on Sunday decided to hike tuition fees for its two-year diploma programmes by Rs 25,000 — from Rs 1.75 lakh to Rs 2 lakh per year for students admitted this session onwards. IIM-C also proposes to ask students to pay their first month’s salary or a part of their first two months’ salary to the institute. However there will be discussions on this before the institute takes a final call.
Though the institute had initially thought of a fee hike to accommodate the now-stayed 27 per cent OBC quota, it is no longer linking the hike with the quota. “We need to further upgrade our infrastructure to become a truly global institute. That is why we are going for a fee hike. The OBC quota has nothing to do with it,” director Shekhar Chaudhuri said.
Starting April 12, IIM-C will send out offer letters to students, among whom 3 per cent were initially meant to be from the OBC category. “Since it is a Supreme Court stay order, we will have to wait for a government instruction. But if we do not receive any order till then, we will have to take a decision,” Chaudhuri said.
The institute spends Rs 3.75 lakh on each student every year. With the current tuition fee it has a Rs-1 lakh deficit per student. With 600 students on the campus, the deficit works out to Rs 6 crore.
So far, IIM-C has met the deficit with money from consultancy projects, research programmes and corporate training programmes. Now, along with raising the course fees, the institute will also concentrate on cutting the deficit through other avenues. “We do not take government grants. So whatever the deficit is, we find funds to meet that. At today’s governing body meeting, we decided to reduce subsidy,” Chaudhuri said.
To meet the deficit, the IIMC will hike the placement fee it takes from recruiting companies. The companies are classified into slots, with various fees charged depending on the slot. “Exactly how much extra will be charged from the companies is yet to be decided. But we do not fear losing out on recruiters. The companies get the best students here and it is natural they will have to pay a fee for that,” Chaudhuri said.
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