Getting a management degree from Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L) is going to get dearer. On Friday, the top brass of IIM-L
announced an unprecedented hike in the fee structure for the two-year post-graduate diploma programme from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh. The institute had increased the fee by Rs 50,000 last year.

The increase, 60% in this case, was announced after the finance committee of IIM-L gave its nod to the proposal.

Last Sunday, IIM-Ahmedabad increased the fees from Rs 11.5 lakh to Rs 12.5 lakh, citing rising cost of teaching.

IIM-L director Prof Devi Singh said the Centre had decided to stop development grant to the tune of Rs 10 crore given annually to the institute. The grant is given to institutes which are still in the development stage. The `bloc grant’ is stopped once an institute reaches the benchmark corpus of Rs 50 crore. “We are almost around that benchmark,” Prof Singh said.

The `bloc grant’ to older IIMs like IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM-Kolkota was withdrawn a few years ago. IIM-Ahmedabad and IIM-Kolkota, which went on to increase their fees then, now have a fee structure of Rs 12.5 lakh and Rs 9 lakh respectively.

The IIM-L management decided to expand facilities and the number of students admitted in the institute in the new academic year. Prof Singh said the number of students admitted this year would go up from 370 to 420. The institute had increased the number of new students by 50 last year.