New Delhi, Feb. 6 (PTI): Six Indian Institutes of Management have decided to start additional courses and increase the intake in many existing ones from the coming academic year following a directive from human resource development minister Arjun Singh to broadbase their activities in the light of the changing economy.

Some of the new courses at IIM Ahmedabad are executive MBA which will have 50 seats, a one-year global managers? programme with 30 seats and a one-year programme on leading and managing, which will have an intake of 80 students, an official statement said today.

IIM Calcutta will conduct a one-year programme for development of entrepreneurs and managers-turned entrepreneurs with 300 seats, while the Noida campus of IIM Lucknow will launch a 50-seat certificate programme in management for defence officers, which will be of six months? duration.

IIM Kozhikode will begin an executive MBA course through distant education for 100 students.

Besides, IIM Ahmedabad will increase capacity in the existing fellow programme in management and fellow development programme to 20 and 40 seats against the present 15 and 30 seats, respectively, the statement said.

IIM Bangalore will raise the number of seats in the postgraduate programmes in management and software enterprise management to 260 and 150 against the existing 180 and 120.

The postgraduate programme in IIM Lucknow will have 260 seats against 240 at present and the postgraduate programme in agro-business management in the same institute will admit 60 students against the existing 30, the statement added.

IIM Indore will admit 60 students in the executive postgraduate programme in place of the 20 it takes now, while IIM Kozhikode will raise the number of seats to 180 in the postgraduate programme in management against the existing level of 120.

The six IIMs have provided a record amount of about Rs 2.35 crore by way of need-based financial assistance to students in the current academic year.

IIM Ahmedabad leads the table having provided Rs 69.78 lakh, followed by IIM Bangalore (Rs 58.08 lakh), IIM Lucknow (Rs 43.70 lakh), IIM Kozhikode (Rs 26 lakh), IIM Calcutta (Rs 20.5 lakh) and IIM Indore (Rs 16.50 lakh).

At a meeting chaired by Arjun Singh on June 29 last year, chairmen and directors of IIMs undertook to ensure that no student faces any difficulty in pursuing education at the institutes for want of financial resources.

It is in this context, that the IIMs have granted financial assistance to the students.

This is also in consonance with the common minimum programme of the UPA government that nobody will be denied professional education because of his being poor, the statement added.