Trichy IIM likely to start from 2009

New Delhi, Nov. 15: Students appearing for tomorrow’s Common Admission Test (CAT) for the IIMs may have a slightly better chance of qualifying for the country’s premier B-schools than either the institutes or the government is letting on.

The CAT bulletin mentions the existing seven Indian Institutes of Management, but the Centre is quietly working overtime to start at least three more IIMs by the 2009 academic session, top government officials said.

Under the 11th five-year plan, six new IIMs are to be started by 2012.

The human resource development ministry has drawn up plans to try and start at least three of them next year itself, sources said.

“Ideally, we would want to start all six in 2009, but the existing IIMs, which will have to assist us, are unwilling to accept such a quick expansion. The plan is to launch three for a start,” a senior official said.

Although the CAT bulletin does not mention any new IIM, any seats created through opening these institutes will be filled considering the scores of tomorrow’s exam, the official said.

With the Election Commission’s model code of conduct in effect, the HRD ministry will in public not even hint that any of the promised IIMs could start next year, the official said. “We do not want to risk being hauled up on charges of allurement.”

Over 2,90,000 aspirants have registered for tomorrow’s CAT, a 26 per cent jump from the 2,30,000 last year, despite the global financial crisis that has cast a cloud over managerial jobs worldwide.

The existing IIMs are also expected to offer around 1,800 seats — up from around 1,600 seats at present — but the extra seats will go only to Other Backward Class students. Under the OBC quota law, all central educational institutions, including the IIMs, have to expand seat intake to accommodate 27 per cent OBC students while maintaining the present number of seats available to the general category.

The HRD ministry has decided on Trichy in Tamil Nadu as one of the venues for the new IIMs, the official said, adding that the institute is “most likely” to start in 2009.

Trichy could have earned the trophy because M. Karunanidhi’s DMK, that rules Tamil Nadu, is a close ally of the Congress in the UPA.

A site selection team from the HRD ministry has already visited three possible locations in the temple town.

Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand could be the next in line to start IIMs in 2009, another official said.

“These three — IIMs in Trichy, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand — are the ones we hopefully should start next year,” the official said.

The remaining three, of the six new institutes promised under the 11th plan, are to come up in Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Haryana.

The ministry has commissioned the government’s in-house Educational Consultants India Limited (EdCil) to draft detailed project reports for all six new IIMs. The reports will be the blueprints for the institutes and will lay down details on how many students they will admit in their first year.

But the ministry has indicated to EdCil that the site visits required for preparing the reports should first be carried out for the IIMs in Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.