XLRI: Money matters

Jamshedpur, April 3: Aspiring management students of the state will have to dig deeper into their purses to step into the hallowed portals of XLRI School of Management (Jamshedpur) and Xavier Institute of Social Service (Ranchi).

The top two management institutes in the state have decided to toe the line of the IIMs and implement a fee hike from the next academic session.

While the XLRI School of Management has decided to increase the annual fees for its two-year postgraduate programmes in business management and personnel management and industrial relations (PM&IR), the Xavier Institute of Social Service (XISS) will increase the fees for personnel management, rural development and information management.

The board of governors of XLRI has decided to raise the fees from Rs 2.95 lakh to Rs 3.05 lakh, a jump of Rs 10,000, for its postgraduate programmes, which is about 36 per cent of the average pay package of an XLRI graduate this year (Rs 8.5 lakh per annum).

XLRI officials informed that the fee structure is being revised after a gap of two years. Describing the hike ?affordable?, chairperson (admissions) of XLRI Sanjay Patro said: ?The hike comes after the board took into consideration the cost of providing education to postgraduate students.?

However, he added that no changes have been made in the concessions given to candidates hailing from the lower strata of the society. SC/ST students, whose parents’ annual income does not cross Rs 1 lakh a year, for instance, will continue to enjoy 25 per cent waiver in the tuition fee.

Fees at XISS, however, will take a leap of around Rs 15,000.

“The proposal will be approved by the governing body soon. The hike will be commensurate the expenditures to be incurred towards the enhanced salary payment to faculty members and infrastructure development in the next two years,” Father Benni Ekka, director of XISS, said.

According to him, the personnel management course, which is the oldest among other courses, now costs about Rs 1.13 lakh while the other two flagship courses — rural development and information management — now costs Rs 1.14 lakh and Rs 1.22 lakh, respectively.

Meanwhile, sources in the state science and technology department informed that a committee on fee fixation,  headed by former high court judge Gurusharan Sharma, has recommended the state government to assess if the fee structure is in keeping with the infrastructure and other facilities provided by various private engineering and management institutions across the state.

The committee was formed following a directive of the Supreme Court last year.

Assistant director of state science and technology department Udai Kumar Singh told The Telegraph that all the states in the country were asked to constitute such committees to ensure transparency in the administration in engineering and management institutions. “The committee recommended the government to carry out an assessment and ensure that whether the fees charged by private engineering and management institutions is in accordance with the facilities provided by them,” said Singh.