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Part - VI

The duty to support the weak and appreciate the strong

State has the duty to support its weakest constituents, and encourage the strong by award and encomium. The theory of the modern democratic state presumes that the taxpayer's money is used wisely to support the needy. Business of government is to govern and not to administer, manage or otherwise control the affairs of institutions and organizations, which do not come under the mandate so granted.

In all affairs, the allocation of resources is the most important since such allocation is predicated on study of need, deciding the priorities, and canalization of available funds for maximum effect. In the field of higher education, the state has a duty to support the weakest. It is well documented that in India, the strongest institutions receive the maximum governmental support, whether needed or not, while the institutions where even the basic facilities are lacking, no government support is available.

In the specific case of IIM's, they do not need government support at all. The amount of Rs 100 Crores, which was given to the IIM's in 2002-03, can be better spent by upgrading many government owned institutions, which are literally in danger of falling down! For example the government owned Bajaj Institute in Mumbai, is desperately in need of a new building, and just Rs 10 Crores would give them much needed facilities. Viewed in another way, Rs 100 Crores would give a minimum set of 2000 books each to the lowest ranked 500 Business schools in the country which do not possess this facility. When state funds are misapplied in this fashion, it is a politically motivated, or simply a misinformed decision, and shows that the MHRD, Dept of Education is probably lacking a set of objective yardsticks for resource allocation in an admittedly resource-constrained environment.

The Canard of the "Tuition fee to be 30% of per capita income"

It is not correct to take just one aspect of American Education (even that example is quite incorrect) and make comparisons. IIMs should be compared with the best in the world!

The current IIM Tuition level of Rs 1,50,000 is US$ 3500, where as the tuition in Harvard, Columbia, MIT etc., is about US$ 25,000. IIMs are already 7 times cheaper! How cheap should we make our educational products in the world context? It is well recognized that Education is the next main thrust area, where the world will find their teachers, researchers and entry-level managers in every field. We should not cheapen ourselves in this market!

Taken in another way, the U. R. Rao committee can be shown to have taken their job not very seriously. For instance on a rough approximation the following holds good in the US Economy: -

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* Contributed by: -
Prof. P. V. Ramana; BE (Hons) Elec. Engg. from Andhra University, Waltair, India; MBA (Accounting & Finance) from Washington State University, USA; Prof. Engr. (Thermal Power), USA (equiv. to a Doctoral qualification); Receiver of Life Time Achievement award in 2003 for service to Management Education given by World HRD Congress, Boston, USA; Dr. P. N. Singh Foundation has instituted the "Prof. P. V. Ramana" for Corporate Governance; he has also founded ITM in 1991.