The IIMs should not increase fees further, the director of IIM Calcutta said on Friday, two months before the board of governors of the Joka institute usually meets to take a call on fee hike.

“Increase in fees is not the solution to fund expansion. We have to come up with new initiatives,” said IIM Calcutta director Sekhar Chaudhuri at a meet organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry.

IIM Calcutta increased fees of its flagship course for the 2010-2012 session from Rs 9 lakh to Rs 13.5 lakh. The fees at IIM Ahmedabad and Bangalore are Rs 13.7 lakh and Rs 13 lakh, respectively.

The three IIMs have not received any grant from the Centre for the past three years, except an allowance for infrastructure augmentation to implement the OBC reservation.

Citing expansion, IIM Ahmedabad had increased fees from Rs 4.5 lakh to Rs 11.5 lakh and IIM Bangalore from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh in 2008, prompting the Centre to recommend a roll back. Both institutes however went ahead with the hike.

IIM Calcutta, which had refrained from effecting big hikes claiming that fees do not “make or break” an institute, implemented the steepest hike in 2010, saying it needed money for expansion and research.

According to Chaudhuri, relying on fees for funds, as the IIMs do, is unfair. “Lakhs of people apply to the institutes. Increasing fees to unprecedented levels would make education at IIMs impossible for many,” said Chaudhuri.

nForeign varsity: The state government will not allow foreign universities to set up campuses in Bengal, higher education minister Sudarshan Ray Chaudhury and school education minister Partha De said on Friday at a seminar in Jadavpur University.

Foreign Education Institutions (Regulation of Entry and Operations) Bill 2010 was tabled in the Lok Sabha in April.