Corporate view of IIM fee-cut

Fee-cut will weaken IIMs: Narayana Murthy, Banga Murthy was speaking to the press along with Hindustan Lever Chairman M S 'Vindi' Banga. The two corporate stalwarts, along with marketing consultant Rama Bijapurkar, said that IIMs are not elitist. Banga said: "Nearly 18 per cent of the IIM students are from the families whose annual income is below Rs 150,000. Another 60 per cent have a household income of below Rs 500,000. Only 22 per cent of the students come from families whose annual income is above Rs 500,000. So to say that IIM is catering to only the elite is wrong." "The government should not spend more on students who would be earning much more," Murthy said, adding that the average salary of an IIM-Ahmedabad graduate was about Rs 825,000 and the loan for fees could be repaid by the student easily in a couple of years. Describing the Union HRD ministry's decision as unilateral, Banga said there were a number of stakeholders who should be involved in the process. He noted that IIM-A was promoted by the central government, Gujarat government and corporates. "There are 45 million children in India who don't go to school. There are 350 million illiterate people and in every rural school of our country there is just one teacher for two classes. So instead of reducing IIM fees, we should pay more attention to those things in our country. I mean we should not rob the poor and pay the rich," Murthy added. Read full-story.