Parliament on Tuesday unanimously passed a Bill to grant the Indian Institutes of Management the power to grant degrees instead of post-graduate diplomas.
The Bill also allows students to acquire doctoral degrees from the IIMs.
The Bill, passed by the Lok Sabha earlier, was passed by the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
Doctoral degrees
Earlier, fellowships of the IIMs were not regarded as Ph.D.s, which led students to complete their diplomas and go abroad if they wanted to earn a doctoral degree.
The hope is that the passage of this Bill will pave the way for more research at these prestigious instit- utions.
The Bill also confers on the 20 IIMs the status of institutions of national importance, granting them greater functional autonomy by restricting the role of the government in them.
Till now, the Centre had a role in the appointment of the chairpersons and directors to their Boards and also fixing the pay of the directors.
As per the IIM Bill, 2017, a Board of Governors will appoint the Director of each IIM.
A search-cum-selection-committee will recommend the names. And the director will be eligible for variable pay as determined by the Board.
