IIM Ahmedabad hikes fees to 21 lacs

The Board of Governors (BoG) at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, on Saturday announced fee hike of 7.7% for the two-year course PGP from academic year 2017 to keep pace with inflation. At present the course fee is Rs 19.5 lakh. Prof Ashish Nanda, the institute’s director, told Mirror that the increased fee for PGP will be Rs 21 lakh. “This will make a year’s fee come to Rs 10.5 lakh. We have taken many decisions concerning the students in the BoG meet. The exit scholarship is one such decision,” Nanda said. He was talking on the sidelines of IIMA’s 52nd annual convocation which had CEO and Managing Director Axis Bank Ltd Shikha Sharma as the chief guest. Kumar Mangalam Birla, the newly appointed chairman of BoG, shared the dais with Nanda, BoG members and faculty members at the ceremony held at Louis Kahn Plaza on Saturday. In her address, Sharma mentioned lines from the popular fantasy novel series Harry Potter to tell students that it is the choices that they make that will define them. “You are poised to enter the real world tomorrow. As Dumbledore told Harry, ‘It is our choices Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities,” she said, adding that growth begins where comfort zone ends. “Every time I have found myself at one of life’s crossroads, I have tried to ask myself which path offers me the steeper learning curve. And more often than not, I have tried to learn new ways to learn and slowly but surely, learning itself has become a habit,” she added. Congratulating the graduating students, Birla told them that the real world was a tough place where often the light at the end of the tunnel is turned off due to budget cuts. “There is intense competition out there… There is failure out there… and you will encounter challenges and hurdles that you never even imagined in your wildest dreams. But those who are willing to push for excellence, those who are willing to endure the grind and work hard, there will be triumphs, achievement and realisations,” he said. Sharing his learning experiences, Birla asked students not to underestimate individual ability. “Team work is the ultimate mantra. Individualism is essential to bring in diversity of thoughts but team work ensures organisational effectiveness. No one person has all the answers. Individual stars are fine but by themselves, they cannot create the brilliance of a galaxy,” he said. A total number of 554 students of the institute’s graduate and fellow programmes were conferred degrees at this year’s convocation. The PGP gold medals were awarded to Ashish Khullar, Akash Gupta and Samyak Daga.