IIM Amendment Bill 2023: NITIE is now IIM Mumbai; All you need to know about the changes

The Rajya Sabha passed the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Amendment Bill on Tuesday, August 8, 2023. The bill seeks to make the President of India a "Visitor" at the IIMs. The IIM Amendment Bill 2023 seeks to make changes to the IIM Act 2017. It was passed in the Lok Sabha by a voice vote on August 4. It will now be presented to President Droupadi Murmu before it becomes an Act.

IIM Amendment Bill 2023: All you need to know

• The IIM Amendment Bill 2023 empowers the President of India (Visitor) to nominate the chairperson of the board of governors, oversee the appointment as well as the removal of directors, and audit the functioning of the IIMs in the country.
• Before 2017, the government was responsible for appointing directors, chairpersons, and board members to the IIMs.
• After the 2017 Act, the board had the authority to make policy decisions on the administration and working of the institutes. The board of governors elects its chairperson.
• The bill also classifies the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE), Mumbai, as the 21st IIM of the country. NITIE Mumbai will now be called IIM Mumbai. 
• The bill aims to curtail the autonomy previously enjoyed by the IIMs. 

“Some members raised questions over why the constitutional requirements of the country including reservation in faculty recruitment are not followed in the IIMs or students from weaker sections are not admitted in these institutions. As long as we don’t fix the accountability, the institutes are not answerable to anyone. Therefore, the bill has been brought to bring that accountability while keeping the academic autonomy intact,” the union education minister, Dharmendra Pradhan said.

Pradhan said that the amendment will strengthen the constitutional position through Parliament to ask why the IIMs have not been adhering to the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019. “Previously, they were not answerable. But now they will be,” he added.