‘IIM a step closer to awarding degrees to students’

LUCKNOW: Students at the Indian Institute of Management may now hope to get degrees instead of diplomas, after the Rajya Sabha passed the IIM Bill on Tuesday. Lok Sabha has already passed the bill.

“We welcome the passage of IIM Bill in the Rajya Sabha. It is a step closer to granting degrees to the students,” said Ajit Prasad, director, IIM-L on Wednesday.

The Bill grants power to all IIMs to award degrees to students. Till now, IIMs were only awarding diplomas.

The batch of 450 students that took admission to IIM-L in June 2017 can hope to get an MBA degree when they complete two-year postgraduate programme in 2019.

According to the Bill, the board of governors will be the executive body of each IIM, comprising up to 19 members.

It will nominate 17 board members including eminent persons, faculty members and alumni.

The remaining two members will be nominees from the Central and state governments, respectively.

IIM-L director Ajit Prasad faces serious charges of anomalies.

The union ministry of human resource development (MHRD) has constituted a two-member panel to probe the alleged financial irregularities in IIM-Lucknow.

“Two senior officials from the MHRD, joint secretary Madhu Ranjan Kumar and former chief controller (accounts) DN Pathak will look into the allegations,” confirmed Sanjay Kumar Sinha, joint secretary, MHRD.

IIM-Lucknow, one of the country’s top management institutes, was mired in controversy in 2017.

Several board members alleged that Prasad took arbitrary decisions that affected the institute’s financial performance.

Prasad denied all these allegations and said he adhered to all rules and regulations while taking the decisions.

THE BATCH OF 450 STUDENTS THAT TOOK ADMISSION TO IIML IN JUNE 2017 CAN HOPE TO GET AN MBA DEGREE WHEN THEY COMPLETE THE TWOYEAR PG PROGRAMME IN 2019.