The 11th Five-Year Plan proposed the setting up of seven new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) by 2012. What also will add to the IIMs? pulls and pressures is the fact that they have to accommodate the 27% reservation according to the Supreme Court ruling.

There have been several firsts. IIM-Kozhikode (IIMK) has been the frontrunner in completing its admissions, all 256 seats filled and SC-ST quota of 22.5% fully accomplished. ?We are not only the fastest, but has also clocked the largest numbers in OBC quota,? Krishna Kumar, director, IIM-K said, declining to reveal how many.

Prompted by the Supreme Court decision to hike the fees in all higher education institutions, IIMK has raised its fee for its two-year, post-graduate programme to Rs 6 lakh (Rs 3.8 lakh earlier). The institute is all game for extending support with infrastructure-building and faculty-sharing, provided the upcoming IIM authorities make the first move of approaching for help. A small battery of officials from IIM-K had recently gone to Bihar to help out with the setting up of accounts and administrative machinery of Chandragupta Maurya Institute of Management, Bihar.

But the new IIMs?even the one proposed in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu?is yet to pop the question. ?At present, we are clueless if this is in Trichy or Coimbatore,? an IIM-K official said. At the same time, there is an air of ambiguous anxiety over the ?sharing? of faculty. Qualified IIM faculty is always in short supply and difficult logistics make ?sharing? of faculty pretty impractical.

Another first is that Haryana is all set to play host to north India?s first IIM that is proposed to be located in Garnawati village in Rohtak district. The project will be funded by the central government and is likely to involve an expenditure of over Rs 200 crore. The Union ministry of human resources has given conditional support to the project, subject to availability of suitable land for the purpose. About 200 acres of land for the IIM has been identified by the state government for the purpose.

IIM-Calcutta, meanwhile, has started preparations for implementing the OBC reservation policy last year itself and is now in the process of creating the necessary infrastructure. ?We will be ready for increasing our intake by 6% of the present sanctioned class size of 300 this year itself. We are expecting that we would have the additional classrooms and hostel rooms for taking in an additional 90 students during 2009-2010 and thereafter an additional 54 students in 2010-2012,? says Shekhar Chaudhuri, director, IIM-C.

At the Joka campus, there?s frenetic construction activity going on. At least 19 new classrooms are coming up, says chief administrative officer, Dinesh Varma, to accommodate an increased number of students with the quotas coming into force. ?Construction is on in full swing. We will have 19 new classrooms in different sizes,? he adds, in order to accommodate more students. Currently, IIM-C has about 700 students, including those opting for the fellow programme, PGDM, PGDCM, PGPEX and PGPEX VLMP. ?Next year, we will have 150 students more,? adds Varma. Currently, there are 75 faculty members at IIM-C. ?We will need to take in at least 13 more teachers,? says Varma.

IIM-C is also the mentor institution to the proposed Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management in Shillong, Meghalaya. ?We are giving support and advice in a limited manner to IIM Shillong by providing them with PGP rules and regulations, system processes we are following and so forth,? adds Varma. The Shillong IIM officials have visited Joka to learn about admission procedures, initial documentation and other processes. ?They will not have to start from scratch. We have helped them with the documents to get them going,? adds Varma. IIM-C may have to help out with faculty for the new IIM when it starts classes but ?nothing has been decided as yet? our resources are quite stretched too? we will take a call when the time comes,? he says, while, IIM- B director Pankaj Chandra says, ?Whenever the director of IIM-Shillong needs support we will help out. There are several areas in which we could extend support, perhaps in setting up different programmes and in hiring faculty?we will extend help as is required.?

From the current academic session, IIM-Ahmedabad has implemented the 6% OBC quota out of the proposed total 27%. The institute, earlier, had already made it clear that due to infrastructural constraints, the institute would not be able to implement the entire 27% OBC quota in one go; hence, it would be implemented in three phases?6% in June 2008, 15% in 2009 and remaining 6% in the third year making it to the total 27%.

In terms of absolute numbers, 17 seats would be reserved for the OBC students for the first year while the institute has made the provision of compensatory 17 seats of the general category. This would add up to 314 students enrolled in the current year at the institute.

The IIM-A officials have ruled out formal participation of the institute providing any academic or infrastructural assistance to the upcoming Indian Institute of Management at Shillong. The Rajiv Gandhi Indian Institute of Management, Shillong is expected to be operational from the current academic session with an approximate student strength of 60.

However, speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior IIMA faculty member revealed that the help, if provided to any of the upcoming IIMs, would be more informal in nature on a ?person-to-person basis? rather than institutionally. They might also render informal assistance in terms of vetting admission procedures and also in terms of visiting faculty once in a while.

Meanwhile, says Devi Singh, director IIM, Lucknow, ?Management development programmes (MDPs) have witnessed not only unprecedented increase in numbers but also increase in number of participants per programme. Revenues from MDPs have gone up more than three times and stand at about Rs 10 crore this year. Our management development programmes enjoy a very good reputation in the corporate world today. We have consciously increased our involvement in public systems and social sectors and have conducted many programmes for sectors like education and health. As far as reservations are concerned, there is implementation of 27% reservation on quota system at IIM-Lucknow in a phased manner?so it has been 8% in 2008; 9% in 2009 and 10% in 2010.?

With inputs from Rutam Vora