In today's scenario, where getting admissions to reputed institutions in very tough and challenging, a very pleasing and happy news has hit our desk. As per media sources, IIM-A would increase its seats from 860 to at least 1,200 the seats in its coveted two-year MBA course and the post-graduate programme (PGP) in management, according to a proposal submitted to the government by IIM-A officials.

Another 400 seats would be added to the post-graduate programme for executives (PGPEX), fellow programmes and other similar courses, sources said on Sunday. Some of these seats could also go to PGP but the number has not been decided, yet and is still under consideration.

The proposal is in response to the human resource development ministry which asked all IIMs to take in more students.

“IIMs are willing to expand and have submitted their proposals to the ministry last year. It is much more practical to strengthen the existing IIMs that are already a brand name rather than concentrating on constructing new ones,” a ministry official said.

It is expected that the expansion process will take approximately five years. Presently IIM-A has 1,200 students in the campus in total including all programs. The IIMs have also planned to expand and have sent the proposals to the ministry. The ministry has asked top six IIMs which include Ahmedabad, Kozhikode, Bangalore, Lucknow, Indore and Calcutta for the review of the proposal. IIMs are also planning to improve their infrastructure like building more hostels, laboratories, classrooms and hiring faculty among others, prior to these expansions. The government is also planning to give more autonomy to these institutes and more powers to their Governing Boards so that they could have more control over the growth and government could monitor them sitting in the back seat.

In recent times IIM-A has taken very innovative and pathbreaking decision which makes the whole initiative very promising.

• Interestingly,  IIM-Ahmedabad became the 1st business-school in the country to podcast lectures. 
• Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) also launched a two-year Post Graduate Programme in Management (e-PGP) through distance learning using satellite-based education technology.

Problems / Hurdles in the expansion

1. IIMs have been saying that fees collected from students would only cover the operating costs and expansion would require extensive capital investment.
2. Sources said in case the ministry can’t backroll the expansion plan, IIMs would be asked to raise money through higher education financing authority, a non-banking corporation that offers affordable loans to educational institutions for infrastructure and research.

In its push for higher education, Hon'ble MHRD Minister Prakash Javadekar-led IIT council recommended increasing the seats in the premier engineering institutes to 100,000 by 2020.The fact of the matter is, what so ever happens, the beneficiary shall be students who wants to learn, explore and excel in their lives.