The Union Cabinet has approved the establishment of 7 new IIMs (Indian Institute of Management - India's finest management schools). These are to be located in Tamil Nadu, Chhatisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Jammu & Kashmir, Haryana and Jharkand. This will take up the total number of IIMs in the country to 14. Currently, the IIMs are located in Ahmedabad (Gujrat), Bangalore (Karnataka), Kolkata (West Bengal), Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh), Indore (Madhya Pradesh), Kozhikode (Kerala) and the 7th and last one was established a couple of years back in the north-east in Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya.
Whike the J&K, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand IIMs will be set-up in the second phase while the others are slated to come up in the 2009-10 period and become functional for the academic year 2010-11. If that happens, that's very good news for students writing CAT 2009 as it opens up four new opportunities for them. India is woefully short on good business schools, driving a number of bright students to mediocre b-schools which have mushroomed round the country. Thankfully, at least a few more hundred of the brighter lot will get to receive quality education.
We just hope that the new IIMs won't be christened on the lines of the Rajiv Gandhi IIM in Shillong. Please leave them as just IIMs.
