IIM Bangalore (file photo)

BENGALURU: Two premier management institutes — IIM Bangalore and IIM Ahmedabad — have proposed to add 805 seats between them in the coming year. If approved by the Centre, the move will take the total intake capacity of the 20 IIMs to 13,216 from 12,411 at present.

Both IIM-B and IIM-A have sent their proposals to the Union ministry of human resource development (MHRD) recently. IIM-B has sought to add 425 seats while IIM-A wants to increase its intake by 380 seats. Both centres have also sought loans from the higher education financing agency (HEFA) to create infrastructure for the additional student strength. If the proposed intake is approved, IIM-B will have 1,646 students against its present 1,221. This will make the institute the second biggest in terms of student intake after IIM-Indore, which has 1,907 students. Currently, IIM-Lucknow stands second with 1,332 seats.

Confirming the development, IIM-B director Professor G Raghuram told TOI: “IIM-B has applied for a loan of about Rs 200 crore. The loan will partly cover our intended investment plans for additional infrastructure.” The exact amount of loan sought by IIM-A could not be confirmed immediately. Raghuram said of the additional 425 seats, 300 will go to two of their two-year MBA programmes, 75 to Executive Post Graduate Programme (EPGP) and 50 to Fellow Management Programme (FPM).

“Currently, we are not in a position to provide accommodation to all students. The planned additional infrastructure will enable us to provide accommodation and make the programmes more attractive. It will also help us increase the size of the programmes,” Raghuram said.

He said IIM-B was looking at expanding facilities on its current campus on Bannerghatta Road. In terms of infrastructure, it would be 340 hostel rooms, 112 one-BHKs and 112 studio-type rooms, besides a 1,400-seater students’ dining and kitchen block. Plans were also afoot for a second campus, with 84 hostel rooms, four 100-seater classrooms, a kitchen and dining rooms with basic office space, he added.

The current proposal, Raghuram said, “will boost the PG programme, for which IIM-B is known and for which there is demand both from students and companies. Scaling up this programme by two more sections will be a win-win situation. The scaling up may also be targeted at specific domains where there is market demand, like analytics.”

Students of the one-year programme (EPGP), targeted at professionals with work experience, currently stay outside the campus. “Bringing them onto the campus will improve the learning ecosystem for this programme. We are also considering expansion of this programme into two sections. Also, the doctoral programme (FPM) is very important for us, both from the perspective of supporting faculty research and contributing to the much-needed academic resources in various top-rated management schools in India,” Raghuram said.

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