IIM BILL’s ILLs make it a bitter pill

IIM Bill’s Ills – A Bitter Pill to kill the disease of autonomous IIMs

The thought of declaring the IIMs to be institutions of national importance, as stated in the preamble, is heart-warming. The efforts and achievements of all IIM stakeholders (faculty, alumni et al) over the years appears to be vindicated.

However, the Bill (click for PDF) in its current form needs significant discussion that might lead to legislative course correction.

Minimum Governance Maximum Government…oops it was supposed to be the other way round

Primarily, the Bill should reflect the spirit of “Minimum Government Maximum Governance”, irrespective of the Government. The Government should focus on primary education (among so many other priorities) and as regards IIMs, the Government should create the right governance ecosystem to allow for appropriate governance by constituting and empowering World Class Boards. However, the Bill vests most of the powers on the Central Government (directly or indirectly) rather than the Board.

IIM Bill’s  “ILLs” – The Highlights

Provisions that need to be discussed include, but are not limited to, the following Clauses

• 12 (Is it realistic to expect world class management faculty at Government specified pay scales)

• 13 (Why is the attendance clause not applicable to Government nominees….this is not an example of maximum governance),

• 17 (Why should the Director be appointed by Central Government when there is a Board in place)

• 21 (This allows Central Government to direct policy and also decide whether a question is one of policy or not)

• 30 (Specifies a rotation policy for all States…seriously? Shall we call this “Manage by Rotation” or let it pass?)

• 35/36 (These clauses state that Central Government makes rules and also approves all regulations prepared by the respective Boards)

• There is no distinction made between the well-established IIMs and the fledgling institutes and the ones in the wings.

The silver lining is that the objective of the Bill is “to declare certain institutes of management to be institutions of national importance” and Clause 34 includes them under the ambit of Right to Information (RTI).

We can only hope that constructive dialogue and broader representation from all categories of stakeholders will not only help us achieve our goals but fulfill our dreams!

What You Can Do

The official deadline for sending your comments toiimbill2015.edu@gov.in and shailykm.edu@nic.in expired earlier this week, but sending an email highlighting the IIM Bill’s ills can’t hurt much.

More importantly, a petition has been put up on change.org, so all you have to do is click on and sign it. You will be done in a few seconds.

If you can invest a few more seconds, all you need to do is “Share” this post with everyone you know.

You can raise the awareness through Twitter, that’s a great way to interact with the Government. You don’t need me to tell you who to tag. See Kiran Mazumdar Shaw’s tweets for inspiration !

The ROI on investing under a minute on this initiative can be humongous.

Some Reactions

Here are links to reactions by some eminent stakeholders

IIM Bill – Degree of Unfreedom

Bill will erode autonomy and drop standards

IIMs flag concerns

Draft IIM Bill 2015 compromises autonomy n not in spirit of Govt’s ‘minimum government maximum governance’ maxim @PMOIndia

— Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (@kiranshaw) June 24, 2015

Finally…

Vote for Change by signing on the petition NOW and send emails to iimbill2015.edu@gov.in and shailykm.edu@nic.in

Tweet using #iimbill2015. I am not asking you to tag @pmoindia, @narendramodi and @smritiirani. These are you own ideas !!

Trivia : The Change.org petition is the result of a “Hike” chat among the batchmates of IIM Bangalore 2000 batch. However, the detailed views regarding IIM Bill’s ills are personal.