Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna (CIMP) will strengthen its corpus fund from internal resources in a bid at financial independence and autonomy.

The management cradle that came up in 2008 is one of chief minister Nitish Kumar's dream projects. Nitish on Thursday chaired the institution's governing board meeting as its chairman, and directed the B-school to generate a corpus fund and gear up to get autonomous status.

Corpus fund is the fund an institution or organisation uses for its existence and sustenance.

At present, CIMP has Rs 19 crore in its corpus fund that is generated from shares from research grants and students' fees. Besides, the government will give CIMP Rs 31 crore this financial year as part of the annual budget, raising the corpus fund to Rs 50 crore. Once CIMP is able to generate enough funds on its own and get autonomy, the state government would not have to provide it funds.

Chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh, principal secretary of the education department R.K. Mahajan, CIMP director V. Mukunda Das and others attended the meet on Thursday. Das told The Telegraph: "The chief minister as chairman of the governing board asked us to develop our corpus fund, while at the same time increase students' admission."

"The institution's decision to strengthen the corpus fund is a good initiative, as once we have huge capital, we can stake claim for autonomous status like other management institutes," said a CIMP faculty member on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

Sources said in its bid to increase and strengthen the corpus fund, CIMP will give more stress on research - that generates funds - and from next year, 120 students will be taken in.

The Rs 19-crore fund CIMP generates now comes from research projects institute faculty members have received from different organisations. Director Das said: "We follow policy of IIMs in generating corpus fund, under which 40 per cent of the money faculty members receive as a research project grant is given to the institution after deduction of expenses incurred in completing the project.

"If any faculty member or research scholar gets a research project of Rs 10 lakh, and Rs 5 lakh is saved after cutting the expenses, 40 per cent of that Rs 5 lakh will go to the institution," he added.

Apart from generating funds from research scholars, the institution depends on students' fees. Right now, CIMP takes in 60 students but from next year, it will be doubled. The institute charges Rs 5 lakh as tuition fees for a two-year management programme from each student.

The CIMP's proposal to double its students' intake in the two-year postgraduate diploma in management from the next academic session has been submitted to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). If the council approves the proposal by the 2017 academic session, the number of students will go up this July.

The decision to increase the number of students has been a long-standing plan, but it was deferred because of space crunch. CIMP started in 2008 from a temporary campus in Hindi Bhavan at Chhajjubagh. In July 2015, CIMP shifted to its new campus in Mithapur spread over 10 acres.