IIM-B can’t implement OBC quota in a year’s time - Director

Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore (IIM-B) has joined the other IIMs in the country by expressing its inability to implement the 27 per cent quota for Other Backward Classes (OBC) in a year’s time as proposed by the Federal Minister for Human Resources Arjun Singh.

Briefing reporters after a meeting of Board of Governors chaired by Reliance Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani, Director of IIM-B Prakash G Apte said the student intake could be increased only in a phased manner over the next three to four years and “not in one go”.

The Board of Governors meeting, however, decided to go in for short and long-term expansion plans and gear up for accommodating additional faculty and students on its campus in Bangalore. The current intake of students at IIM-B stands at 240 every year.

“The increase in seats to accommodate the 27 per cent OBC seats cannot be done in one go as we are running short of not just faculty, but classrooms also. The increase in seats has to be a staggered process spanning a period of three to four years”, he said.

A Rs 500 million expansion plan had been drawn up to construct classrooms, hostels and even dormitories. Against the sanctioned faculty strength of 89, IIM-B currently has only 73. “If the seats are to be increased to accommodate the 27 per cent OBC quota, we need 110 of them”, Apte said.

Apte did not rule out the possibility of IIM-B going in for a split campus if the architects entrusted with the task of designing the new building decide against having high-rise buildings in the campus.

“It is unviable to identify the additional 10 acres to 15 acres required for expansion anywhere within a vicinity of 10 kms from the existing campus. It may have to be a split campus”, he said.

If the IIM-B has to acquire additional land, the cost of the expansion programme will increase by another Rs 200 million, taking the total of Rs 700. “The Government will have to give us the funds for expansion”, he said.