The government appointed Errol D'Souza as IIM Ahmedabad's new director and AV Vellayan, executive chairman of Murugappa Group, will assume charge as the chairman of the Board of Governors (BoG) at IIM Kozhikode.

Barely hours before the IIM Act came into effect, the Union HRD Ministry made two crucial appointments to IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Kozhikode Tuesday.

The government appointed Errol D’Souza as IIM Ahmedabad’s new director. A V Vellayan, executive chairman of Murugappa Group, will assume charge as the chairman of the Board of Governors (BoG) at IIM Kozhikode.

Formal orders to this effect were issued late Tuesday, despite the resistance put up by both institutes. IIM Ahmedabad chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla and S Onkar Kanwar, chairman of Apollo Tyres and also a member of IIM Kozhikode BoG, had recently written to the HRD Ministry, requesting that the Board be allowed to take charge of the appointments, especially since the IIM Bill has been passed by Parliament.

The new law empowers the institutes to select their own directors and BoG chairpersons and members.

D’Souza is a professor of economics and Dean of Faculty at IIM Ahmedabad. He was appointed the institute’s director in-charge in August 2017 after Ashish Nanda resigned in April, a year before his term was to end. D’Souza studied economics and statistics from the University of Mumbai and did his Ph.D from JNU. His research is focused on areas of macroeconomics, development finance and public policy.

D’Souza was selected from a panel of three finalists. His colleagues at IIM Ahmedabad, Prof Arvind Sahay and Prof Neharika Vohra were the other contenders for the job. The shortlist for Kozhikode’s chairmanship, apart from Vellayan, also had Kanwar and Lakshmi Narayanan, who is the CEO of Cognizant.

However, these weren’t the only appointments made Tuesday. The ministry also appointed three BoG members to IIM Calcutta and one each to IIM Kozhikode, IIM Raipur ad IIM Udaipur.

The IIM Act came into effect from January 31 midnight, just a few hours after the appointment orders were issued. This means that all IIMs will be free to appoint their own directors and chairpersons. This autonomy will be first exercised by IIM Jammu, IIM Kashipur and IIM Amritsar, where the posts of director are currently vacant.