As the newly appointed chairman of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), the Aditya Birla Group chief Kumar Mangalam Birla sent out a clear message against any move encroaching upon the autonomy of the institute.
In his first address to the media as the chairman of the institute, Birla continued the ideology of his predecessor AM Naik, and said that the autonomy of the institution 'should not be tampered with'.
The much-debated draft of the IIM Bill, which had kicked up a controversy due to some clauses taking away the autonomy of the IIMs, had been one of the reasons for a strained relationships between the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) and the heads of the IIMs.
However Birla, who said that he was new to the sector and was yet to see the draft bill, maintained that “…the autonomy of institutes like IIM-A should not be fettered even to the slightest extent. These institutes have their own DNA and have grown up in a certain way where they have been self-regulated. This has been the important reason for their success; hence it should not be tampered with in anyway.”
Changes
The newly appointed chairman spent two days at the institute, which had its first Board of Governors meeting under the new chairman on Friday. The institute has decided to go cashless in a month's time. “Most of the transactions at the institute are cashless, but in a month's time we plan to go fully cashless,” said Manoj Bhatt, chief administrative officer.
“It was a routine quarterly BoG meeting that we have. The Chairman extensively interacted with the faculty and students on the campus,” said Ashish Nanda, director, IIM-A.
Birla was appointed as the chairman of Board of Governors of IIM-A in October this year, succeeding L&T chairman AM Naik, who had tendered his resignation in December last year — six months before the end of his term. Cadila Healthcare chairman and managing director Pankaj Patel was the interim chairman of the BoG till the new appointment was made.
On his agenda as the chief of the institution, Birla said that he would look to strengthen the existing academia-industry linkage. “There is a linkage between industry and institute, which has to be made stronger.... I would like to contribute by trying to build an ecosystem that marries the two and brings them closer,” he said.
When asked to comment on the recent allegations by the Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi about his group allegedly offering ₹25 crore to then chief minister of Gujrat and current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Birla refused to comment.