 RECOMMENDATIONS

8.1 Mission

1. The Mission of the Institutes of Management to strengthen management in business, industry and commerce is still relevant. In some ways it may have become more relevant in the context of new economic trends. It is therefore desirable to reaffirm the Mission of the IIMs in business, industry and commerce.

2. The Mission statement, however, needs to be expanded to emphasise IIMs commitment to public service and public management.

3. Career paths in government and other public service need to be opened to provide career opportunities to trained professionals in public policy and public management. The 'demand' for management graduates in the undermanaged sectors should be systematically studied and policies for opening these positions should be examined and pursued.

4. The Post Graduate Programme (PGP) is doing well and should not be diluted to serve other public sector needs that cannot be appropriately integrated. The IIM-B should separate its public management sectors from its PGP to strengthen it further.

8.2 Teaching Materials, Research and Consultancy

5. The inter-relatedness of teaching, research and consultancy needs to be better emphasised for greater synergy. Choices in approving research and consultancy must be exercised to strengthen their interconnectedness and mutuality.

6. There should be much greater emphasis on the development of relevant teaching materials and research. Appropriate policies and rewards should be initiated to strengthen this aspect of IIMs functioning.

7. Consultancy assignments should be selectively accepted by the Institutes. A clearer delineation of the objectives of consultancy, its relationship with teaching and research and better administrative measures for approval and rejection needs to be worked out.

8. The present practice of sharing consultancy income with individual faculty need to be discontinued. Instead, all consultancy income should accrue only to the institutes. Depending on the financial position, they should be left free to enhance faculty salary scales and offer faster, performance based career growth to attract and retain good faculty, subject to uniformity across IIMs.

8.3. Public Policy and Management Systems

9. The Centre for Management in Agriculture in IIM-A should be further strengthened, and its mandate should be more clearly defined. Excellence needs to be emphasised, rather than quantum or range of output. Further, IIM-A should withdraw from other public sectors not directly connected with its central mission.

10. The IIM-B has pursued sectoral programme in public systems as part of its PGP programme. It is recommended that they organise a separate stream in public management and not combine it with the PGP or fragment these into many sectors. Some choices will have to be made and IIM-B could consider energy and transportation, or panchayati raj, or urban planning and transportation, but should not attempt to do everything.

11. The Centre for Rural Development Management in IIM-C is much too small in effort to consider it as a serious institutional involvement in rural development. Unless a substantial institutional effort can be made, IIM-C may reconsider its involvement in, rural development management. Further, it should explore the possibility of systematically serving urban planning and management sector or any other under-managed public sector relevant to its environment.

12. The IIM-L's programmes in public systems have still to find its feet. But they need to learn from the experience of other Institutes and keep their role in, public policy and management well focussed on areas such as primary health, education and should be sufficiently serious to lend central leadership for a viable and ongoing activity of the Institute.

13. IIM-L should also re-examine its strategy for its management development programmes. Some serious investment in MDPs would be necessary to strengthen its overall thrust in management education.

8.4 Governance

14. The IIMs need greater autonomy and a different mix of Board Members if it is to play a more meaningful role in developing a future vision of the Institutes and. also to deal with their financial and administrative problems.

15. The size of the Boards should be reduced and should not be more than fifteen.

16. The Chairman of the Board should be appointed by the Government of India on the recommendation of the Board. In the absence of a newly appointed Chairman anti pending Government's approval, the Board should elect one of its own Members to serve as Chairman for the time being.

17. The Board Membership should be for a three year period and could be extended for another term of three years.

18. One third of the Board Members shall retire by rotation every year. This will not apply to ex-officio Members viz, the Government of India representative and the Director.

19. The Board shall nominate the new Members in place of the retiring members so that there is both continuity and change.

20. The Board invites a Government representative from the Ministry of Human Resource Development; a Director of another IIM; three Members representing client sector including at least one from the relevant public management sector and three outstanding, intellectuals.

21. The Board will also have two faculty nominees appointed by the Chairman; two members elected by the General Body of IIM Society and a representative of the Alumini Association of the Institute.

22. The Chairman and Members of the first reconstituted Board shall be appointed by the Government of India.

23. The Director's appointment should be by the Board and not by the Government.

8.5 Finance

24. Each IIM should work out a package of measures both for containing its annual maintenance expenditure on the basis of grants available from the Government of India and also for augmenting its internal income to be retained by the Institutes over and above the Government grants.

25. The government should take a flexible view in providing financial support to the different IIMs and encourage the Institutes to pursue vigorously, revenue generating, cost cutting and fund raising efforts. The non-plan maintenance grants may be provided, as Block Grant for a period of five years.

26. Steps should be taken to build up a Corpus Fund for each Institute during the next five years. The Interest proceeds from the Corpus Fund shall be utilised to finance the gap between the annual maintenance expenditure and the internal revenues of the Institute without having to depend on government grants as and when the Corpus is fully subscribed.

27. Government may initiate the creation of the Corpus Fund by releasing the 8th Plan outlay for each IIM as its contribution to the Corpus. Each Institute may set up a Task Force for realising the Corpus Fund Plan.

28. After the Institutes have become financially self-supporting with the creation of the Corpus Fund and the package of measures for augmenting its internal resources and cutting down cost, the government grants may be limited to programmes considered high priority and of social relevance by government including in the area of public system management.