MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Management at Tiruchirappalli has been without a full-time director since February last year when the term of Prafulla Agnihotri came to an end. Agnihotri has since been continuing on an extension, as the hunt is on for a replacement.Late November, the Ministry of Human Resource Development said at least 13 of the 20 IIMs were functioning without full-time directors.The new ones among these institutes include Rohtak, Raipur, Udaipur and Tiruchirappalli. Six of the other more recent IIMs — Amritsar, Sirmaur, Bodh Gaya , Sambalpur, Nagpur and Vishakhapatnam —started operations without a director.Strict control, remote location, disincentives to research and poor salaries continue to pose major challenges for the newer IIMs, making it tough to find full-time directors, IIM insiders said.Top officials from IIMs said these institutes were facing a leadership crisis due to government and political interference, and lack of succession planning . “The new IIMs are still dependent for funding on the government.This leads to stricter control and lack of freedom,” said the director of one of the older IIMs. The absence of full-time directors also leads to delay in key decisions, such as faculty recruitment.The HRD ministry didn’t respond until press time on Friday to an email requesting comments on delay in appointment of full-time directors and other issues at young IIMs.“Though I have full powers, I am afraid to take certain decisions on recruitment, financials, et al because I am an interim director,” said one of the directors in-charge. Janat Shah , director in charge at IIM-Udaipur, who is serving his second extension, said perhaps the ministry underestimated the time it could take to appoint a new director.“Maybe they could start search a bit earlier and complete it before the term of one director gets over. Also, the explosion in the number of institutions may have added to the delay and the ministry could perhaps look into the process,” he said.Salary is another issue for new directors, said some industry insiders. But Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, chairperson of IIM-Bangalore, feels salary is not always the biggest consideration. “But if you want to attract talent from overseas, it is not easy for them to accept a salary cut,” she said. “It is about building credibility and becoming the most sought after institution for employment.”Also, one will miss out on consultancy and research opportunities due to lack of time. “If you are a good faculty, you will have foreign teaching and consultancy opportunities as well as scope to do corporate training which gives additional revenue opportunities,” said the director at a new IIM.The responsibility of the director of a new IIM is far greater than that at an established one. “The director of a new IIM has to have very good organisational ability, people and leadership skills as the responsibility will be much greater than the older IIMs that have already their set processes and systems,” said Agnihotri of IIM-Tiruchirappalli.However, Agnihotri said he never faced any government interference. Anindya Sen , director in charge of IIM-Ranchi since November 2014, said people from established IIMs were reluctant to go to the new institutes. “They should allow older IIMs to have satellite campuses rather than setting up completely new standalone institutes,” he added.However, the delay is not for the young IIMs alone. Even premier and a few of the old institutes are also tackling the same issue. Among the ones without a full-time director are Bangalore that has been led by an interim director for more than a year, Kozhikode that is operating without one for over two years and Ranchi , which last had a full-time director more than three years ago.