New Delhi, Jan. 24: The Indian Institutes of Management in Calcutta, Bangalore and Lucknow have drawn up plans to set up campuses or research centres abroad, after the government recently agreed to change the rules that bar such offshore ventures.

While the Calcutta and Lucknow B-schools want to set up campuses in either a West Asian or a South East Asian country, the Bangalore institute plans an overseas research centre, possibly in China.

The vision document of IIM Lucknow, which The Telegraph has accessed under the RTI Act, says: “We would like to plan a campus abroad either in (the) Middle East or in South East Asia, in consortium with other IIMs or top business schools from around the globe. A feasibility study will be taken up during the current year.”

IIM Calcutta, which observed its golden jubilee last year, has similar plans, a source from the B-school said without elaborating.

Lucknow’s document was placed for discussion at a meeting of IIM directors and chairpersons with human resource development minister Kapil Sibal on October 13. The institutes at Bangalore and Kozhikode too presented their vision documents.

The meeting could not discuss them for lack of time, and the institutes were asked to get the documents approved by their respective board of governors.

“Certainly we are looking at having a campus abroad. It will increase our global reach. But nothing has been finalised yet,” IIM Lucknow director Devi Singh said.

His B-school, according to its vision document, wants to start student-exchange programmes with foreign institutes for post-graduate programmes, international programmes in management for executives, and the fellow programme in management.

Bangalore’s vision document says the B-school wants to promote research through alliances with foreign institutions.

“Three or four emergent themes... will be identified for research collaboration. These will result in: creating new centres of excellence and laboratories, for example (an) IIMB Emerging Markets Centre, in China,” it says.

The institute also wants partnerships with American universities such as Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and INSEAD of France.

The issue of IIMs going abroad has always been controversial. In 2007, Bangalore had proposed a campus in Singapore but the government rejected the plan. It cited restrictions in the memorandums of association that prescribe the rules for the functioning of each IIM.

The memorandums bar the B-schools from going abroad on the ground that their priority is to meet the educational needs of Indians.

Now the government has agreed to approve amendments to the memorandums. Each institute’s board of governors will have to amend the B-school’s memorandum and send it for government approval.

“The government is ready to approve the amendments, which will enable them to set up campuses abroad,” a human resource development ministry official said.

However, the IIMs in Ahmedabad, Kozhikode and Indore do not have any immediate plans to set up shop abroad.

The Ahmedabad B-school wants to set up a campus in Hyderabad. Sources in the institute said it was now conducting executive development programmes in foreign countries like the United Arab Emirates and Egypt in partnership with certain institutes. It wants to expand these programmes to other countries.

The existing memorandums do not bar such foreign programmes in partnership.