Prof B S Sahay, Director IIM Raipur, talks about the Importance of Fund Raising for IIMs

During a recent meet that was coordinated by IIM Raipur with Ministry of HRD marks the first step towards fund raising activity as a source of funds for IIMs. Presently IIMs depend on the Government of India for much of their funds. In the past few years however the Management Development Program has become an important source of funds for IIMs.

Prof B S Sahay, Director, IIM Raipur along with Shri H S Bhartia, Chairman, Board of Governors of IIM Raipur put forth the plan before the ministry and proposed a pan IIM network where the directors of all 13 IIMs shall meet once in every 6 months to take the issue of funding further. The Ministry acknowledged the efforts of IIM Raipur in this regard and discussed the matter at length with the directors.

The event saw experts who came from London School of Economics and Oxford University to discuss the various aspects of fund raising and see how it can be adopted in the present framework. The meeting which was originally supposed to be between the directors of IIMs only was expanded to include the directors of IITs and NITs. The need for the fund raising activity was acknowledged across the board.

In the west where several of the top Ivy League institutes are privately run and managed; fund raising is an integral part of an institute’s operations with a dedicated team to look into this regard. As IIMs begin the expansion of their campus to open campuses outside the country the need for such activities is expected to become pressing.

Prof Sahay said that for funding process to become a sustainable source of funds that are needed for operations it is important that activities like Entrepreneurship are given significant importance by all IIMs and particularly the new IIMs who would require an Alumni Base to support such activities in the next few years as the older IIMs have a well-established Alumni Network.

He said that in order to make the fund raising activity more attractive IIMs would be required to work closely with Corporates to incorporate changes in curriculum that suit the requirements of the Industry more frequently. Focus would also be placed on producing quality research through maintaining a quality Fellow Program in Management. This activity would also help attract the best faculty from the globe and give rise to truly global institutions.

Keeping this in mind IIM Raipur has proposed to open 4 Centers of Excellence that will come up in due course of time. He said this was in line with the mission of IIM Raipur to be a true world class Management Institution.
 

Concluded.