IIMs to be empowered to award degrees

The government Thursday said it was formulating a law to empower the premium Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) to offer degrees like universities without curtail their autonomy.

"The government has been examining the issue of bringing the IIMs in the country under an umbrella legislation like the Institutes of Technology Act. It will empower the IIMs to award degrees to students, which they are not competent to do at present," the human resource development (HRD) ministry said in a statement.

"It may be clarified that bringing the IIMs under the ambit of a central law will in no way alter their accountability to parliament or their status of being public institutions," it said.

India has six IIMs at Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Bangalore, Lucknow, Khozhikode and Indore, providing industry-oriented postgraduate diplomas and executive certificate programmes.

Refuting media reports that the ministry is trying to quell the vocal IIMs and curtail their autonomy through the planned law, the ministry said the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have been flourishing as institutes of excellence under the Institutes of Technology Act and "their autonomy has in no way been adversely affected under the said act".