The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) and the HRD Ministry are in disagreement over the quantum of autonomy to be granted to the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) under a new bill. The bill has been going through several avatar and may not be tabled in the current session of Parliament if differences continue to persist. Indianmandarins has learnt that PMO and HRD officials would meet shortly to iron out the differences. It is said the PMO recently recommended six changes to the revised IIM Bill - which aims to empower the premier B-schools to award degrees instead of diplomas - to dilute the scope of government control over the institutes. But the HRD Ministry is willing to adopt only three of them. The government listed the IIM Bill for introduction in the Budget Session of Parliament after it redrafted the law to modify clauses that the IIMs alleged would curtail their autonomy. The ministry, for instance, modified Section 3 (k) of the Bill, which stated that any regulation made by the BoG would have to be approved by the government. The changed provision now gives the BoG the final say. The re-drafted Bill was circulated among different ministries for comments in December last year. But with the PMO requesting further changes in the revised draft and the HRD Ministry disagreeing with some of the suggestions, the Bill's introduction in the Budget Session seems unlikely. By Rakesh Ranjan (Editor-in-chief)