14 out of 20 IIMs running without full-time director

The Centre's tall claims of improving quality of education in premier business schools has fallen flat as most of the Indian Institute of Managements (IIMs) are running without a permanent director. According to a report presented in the Lok Sabha on Monday, 14 premier business schools are running without a director for last several years. There are 20 IIMs in the country.

Notably, among the 14 IIMs that are functional sans full-time directors most are the new ones and they are facing managerial problems. The development works at these IIMs are facing a major roadblock as mentor directors have their own priorities of looking after their parent business schools instead of new ones.

In case of IIM Tiruchirappalli, the institute is running without a full-time director since February 2016 when the term of Prafulla Agnihotri came to an end. Agnihotri has since been continuing on an extension, as the hunt is on for a replacement.

The situation has not improved yet as in November last, 13 IIMs were in operation without a permanent director and after three months, the number has increased to 14 out of total 20 IIMs that were functioning without full-time directors.

The new ones among these institutes include Rohtak, Raipur, Udaipur and Tiruchirappalli, Ranchi, Jammu. Six of the other more recent IIMs — Amritsar, Sirmaur, Bodh Gaya, Sambalpur, Nagpur and Vishakhapatnam—started operations without a director. Some of the old IIMs—Bangalore and Kozhikode—are also running sans a full-time director.

However, the directors of the mentor IIMs are looking after the seven new IIMs (Amritsar, Sirmaur, Bodh Gaya, Sambalpur, Nagpur, Visakhapatnam and Jammu), till the appointment of regular director, said Minister of State for Human Resource Development (HRD) Mahendra Nath Pandey in a written reply to a Lok Sabha question.

"For other IIMs, the tenure of the outgoing director has been extended or the senior most professor of the institute has been given additional

charge of the post of director," the minister said.