The brouhaha over HRD minister Murali Manohar Joshi's interference with the working of the Indian Institutes of Management will not end easily. Corporate India, many of whose leading managers have emerged from the portals of the IIMs, and which depends upon the IIMs to supply it with trained managers, is keen to ensure that these leading institutes are not made into sacrificial goats at the altar of political expediency.

The latest salvo has come from N R Narayana Murthy, chairman of the board of governors of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, M S ''Vindi'' Banga, chairman of Hindustan Lever and member of the board of governors of IIM-A, and well-known marketing consultant Rama Bijapurkar, who is a guest faculty member at IIM-A.

At a press meet in Mumbai yesterday they called on the NDA government minister to reconsider his decision to slash fees at the IIMs. This was a larger societal challenge and its impact would be felt 15 or 20 years from now, they explained.

Mr Narayana Murthy and Mr Banga stressed that the fee cut would not make the IIMs more accessible to the poor. The ministry's priority should be to enhance the number of management seats in the country and to set up more such institutions, they said. The correct way in which poorer students can be helped, if that is what is needed, is through scholarships and educational loans rather than a general slashing of fees, which will affect the quality of the education and make everybody a loser. Mr Narayana Murthy called the government's approach a ''lose-lose'' proposition. He said there was no need to subsidise higher education.

Mr Joshi's fee-cut diktat and his demand that the IIMs expand the number of students per batch will only raise the public subsidy level steeply. Instead of subsidising IIM students who get high salaries on graduating and are therefore in a position to pay for their education, the government should be considering improving education at lower levels, "to enable a larger number of students from diverse backgroundsto gain admission into IIMs," said Mr Banga.

According to Mr Banga, the actual cost of training a student at IIM-A is Rs.4 lakh, and (at the current fee level of Rs.1.5 lakh) students at this institute are already subsidised to the extent of Rs.2.5 lakh. The government's order to slash fees would only raise the subsidy level much higher. Terming the government's move retrogressive, Mr Banga said considering the health of the economy, subsiding IIM students is not a priority.

Ms Bijapurkar pointed out that, contrary to the impressions being sought to be created that the IIMs were narrow, elitist institutions, IIM-A has conducted several programmes for the social sector, including hospital management courses and training programmes for school principals and teachers. She also gave an example of a recent gold medallist from IIM-A, who had entered the institute with an 'inadequate functional knowledge of English'. "It is the nurturing environment at the institute and between students which provides opportunities to students from all backgrounds to excel," she explained.

Mr Narayana Murthy said he hoped his ''good friend'', the minister, would relent. But, although he did not say so, he didn't seem to expect Mr Joshi to do anything of the kind, and even offered to resign from his position as chairman of the IIM-A board if the minister wanted him to do so. He said he was only doing what he was expected to do -''I am looking after the long-term welfare of the IIMs.''

The quality of IIMs is recognised worldwide, and these institutes are one of the factors that give India an edge over rival countries, including China. Tarnishing the performance and image of these institutes will only serve to take some of the shine off India.