The timing of the two appointments is significant because the IIM Act - which came into effect on Wednesday just a few hours after D’Souza and Vellayan’s - empowers IIMs are to appoint their own directors and BoG chairmen, reported IE.

IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Kozhikode on Wednesday got their new director and chairman respectively. Human Resource Development (HRD) Ministry appointed Errol D’Souza as IIM Ahmedabad’s new director and AV Vellayan, executive chairman of Murugappa Group, as the chairman of the Board of Governors (BoG) at IIM Kozhikode. Interestingly, the appointments were made just a few hours before the IIM Act came into effect, reported the Indian Express.

The timing of the two appointments is significant because the IIM Act – which came into effect on Wednesday just a few hours after D’Souza and Vellayan’s – empowers IIMs are to appoint their own directors and BoG chairmen, reported IE. The order has been communicated to the respective institutes. This has happened for the first time that such level of autonomy is granted to any centrally-run educational institution. In fact, the degree of autonomy granted to the IIMs under the new law was the source of some friction between the Prime Minister’s Office and the HRD Ministry under Smriti Irani’s leadership in 2016, reported IE.

Significantly, a member of institute’s BoG in IIM Kozhikode had earlier written to the ministry requesting that the Board should be allowed to take charge of the chairman appointment, especially after the IIM Bill that was passed by Parliament in the winter session. The institute’s ScSc had submitted its recommendations for the post before the passage of the Bill. The institute shortlisted – Onkar S Kanwar, chairman of Apollo Tyres, and Lakshmi Narayanan, CEO of Cognizant – for Kozhikode’s chairmanship.

This comes days after IIM Bangalore recommended some names for the selection of next chairman of the institute. But the ministry refused to appoint any from the suggested list. IIM Bangalore’s search-cum-selection committee (ScSC), is headed by Rajiv Maliwal – co-founder of Sabre Partners, had recommended names of Vinita Bali, former managing director of Britannia industries, renowned cardiac surgeon Dr Devi Shetty and Vikram Kirloskar, non-executive director on the board of Kirloskar Brothers, for the post of chairman of the Board of Governors (BoG), reported the Indian Express. However, that time the government did not find all three candidates suitable for the job. Notably, IIM Bangalore has been without a full-time chairman ever since Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Chairman of Biocon Limited, who had completed her term last year.