Modi government to open 16 New IIMs: Good or Bad?

The Modi government announced their plan to open new IIMs and IITs in all states. Although there are hardly anybody who have expressed their objection, there are numerous people waiting eagerly for this concept. This article explores its implications.

Alerting parliament’s joint sitting, Honorary President Pranab Mukherjee announced that the government will establish IITs and IIMs in every state. “We will open IITs and IIMs in all states.” the president announced in his address.

An IIM and an IIT in all states, what would be the effects? While hardly anyone has protested against the issue, there are many who are thrilled with the thought.

The existing Government had also made the same promise at the time of election and has therefore brought forward its poll promise by putting the same in the speech of the President. Prime Minister Narendra modi had already said that, “Education and opportunity for jobs for youngsters; IIMs, IITs & AIMS in every state is one of the 8 Point Development Model of our government.”.

As the reports show, the government would like to initiate such an expansion in haste and HRD minister Smriti Irani has already put demands of infrastructure for new IIMs and IITs on the agenda of her meeting with state secretaries of higher and technical education on June 17.

Let us consider the present situation of our IIMs and IITs as a whole before tallying the strengths or weaknesses of this gigantic expansion plan.

Indian Institute of Management – IIM : Current Scenario

In the existing 13 IIM’s there are 3335 seats.

As there is one IIM in every state, it will be 29 IIMs overall. 16 new IIMs will bring at least 1920 seats (assuming a batch of 120). So the overall IIM quota seats would be 5255. 27% of the total seats will be for OBC’s, 15% for SC’s and 7.5% seats are reserved for ST category and so it will create 49.5% overall. Thus the general category now shall have 2653 seats available with them, which is a gigantic boost from 1684 seats previously.

The New IIMs are now in the proposed phases of opening in J&K, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Maharashtra, Seemandhra, Telangana, Delhi, Odisha and north-eastern states except Meghalaya.

Indian Institute of Technology – IIT : Current Scenario

 In 16 IITs there are total seats of 8862. Though ISM Dhanbad is also generally included in IITs and there are total seats of 1023 and total becomes 9885 seats. Out of them in general category 4,844 seats.

New IITs are proposed to rise now in states of J&K, Haryana, Seemandhra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh and north-eastern states. Whether all north-eastern states will have an IIT or they are being consolidated is yet to be known.

Advantages of establishing New IIMs and IITs

– Establishing new universities of higher learning, the increase in the seats is certainly a piece of good news for future management and technical graduates who would wish to establish their career in the area of management and technology.

– Even though they possess the greatest number of young minds, admission of students into premier institutions like IIMs and IITs is restricted due to non-availability of suitable seats. Increase in seats will enable such clever minds to achieve their dream.

– With the construction of new institutes, a considerable investment will be done in each state and hence local economy will boost. The standard of not only higher but primary education too will get enhanced, as more individuals will be ready to take advantage of better education provided.

– The majority of the students need to change from one state to another for gaining quality education. Opening these quality schools in all the states will be advantageous for the progress of each state because the migration will be reduced. Further, the industries will seek more local talent than some excellent foreign colleges’ talent or other states’ talent, that will enable them to hire better and motivated workers who will work harder.

– And, the issue of accessing local talent will address most of the HR problems and industries will be able to capitalize on it in numerous ways from establishing industries to expanding business in the preferred state and location.

– The feeling of competition will rise and will only thrive. So, it would be a win-win for all, local, state and the country altogether. So the entire socio-economic scenario will alter.

Few areas of concern

Although the dream is great but there are going to be some hurdles before the new government to make this dream of an IIM and an IIT in every state possible. Some areas of concern are:

– The newly formed IIMs are already incurring losses owing to the absence of proper infrastructure and qualified staff. The government needs to be cautious while setting up such institutions. It needs to ensure that whatever institutions are set up, they are in a position to deliver quality education to the largest number of students.

– Government should first attempt to expand the existing capacity of the existing IIMs and IITs by filling seats and faculty instead of opening new one. Indian IIMs and IITs have failed to raise their intake capacity compared to other Top Institute in the world. Government should start to enhance the depth of these Institutions instead of breadth.

– While setting up an IIT would, on average, require Rs 1,750 crore, setting up an IIM and central university would require Rs 1,000 crore each. This doesn’t include the expense of land that state governments will have to purchase and gift to the center for free. Narendra Modi government will be forced to go for this expansion phase wise, one or two states at a time, instead of one state at a time.

– Government has proposed his homework prior to designing this colossal expansion. Building infrastructure, faculty and primary-secondary education quality need to be addressed for the success of this venture.

– No developed infrastructure, and few Quality permanent faculties are two of the greatest stumbling blocks to this cause. The government and the HRD Ministry must prioritize this problem so that they may enjoy the fruits of their future schemes.

Whatever may be the issues, imparting quality education to more sections of society is the need of the hour for India. Being a developing country and to facilitate this development, a balanced growth in the output of well-educated and highly qualified people is just inevitable.

So the wait will be interesting to watch the next move towards this initiative by the Narendra Modi government and the HRD Ministry. Students otherwise will rejoice as the scope of learning from the top-most institution of technology and management will increase.