The IIMs have been granted complete autonomy and will not grant degrees.
The Union Cabinet approved the Indian Institutes of Management Bill 2017. The bill grants complete autonomy to IIMs.
The Cabinet, Chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved the bill. Under this bill the IIMs would be declared as institutes of National importance and would be provided with statutory powers.
IIMs would now be able to award degree instead of diplomas.
As of now IIMs were registered under the societies act were not authorized to award degrees and have been awarding Post-Graduate Diploma and fellow programme in Management.
While the Diplomas were treated as equivalent to MBA and Ph.Ds, but the equivalence is not universally accepted especially for the fellowship program.
There are provisions of adequate accountability by the IIMs in the bill.
The annual reports of the IIMs would be tabled in the Parliament and CAG would audit their accounts.
The management of these institutions would now be board driven.
One
of the important features of the bill is that the board will now have experts and
alumni and provisions have been made to include women and members from SC &
ST in the board.