Close on the heels of fee-hike announcement by Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM-A), the IIM Lucknow and IIM Bangalore too have announced that, from the forthcoming academic session, the fee for their flagship Post Graduate

Programme in Management (PGPM) will be increased Rs.1.5 lakh per annum.

Saying that the fee hike is “cost-based” and will help strengthen the institute’s financial position and meet its escalating expenditure, IIM Lucknow Director Prof Devi Singh elaborated that the increase in the fee will be Rs. 75,000 apiece for the two respective years of the PGPM. 

Singh said: “We will increase the fee from Rs.2.5 lakh per annum at present to Rs.4 lakh per year from 2009-10 academic session. The fee will be Rs.4 lakh each year during the two-year programme.”

Announcing the PGPM fee hike for IIM-Bangalore on Thursday, the institute’s Director Pankaj Chandra said that in the last five-year period, the Union government had not extended any grants to the institute, which was not only bearing an additional expense because of the increase in wages following the Sixth Pay Commission, but also paying additional pension to 200 pensioners.

Both IIM-L and IIM-B are also planning to increase the number of seats in their respective PGPM programmes to 350 this year, from the present seats which accommodate 300 and 270 students respectively.