Varun Arya is an alumnus of IIT-Delhi and IIM-Ahmedabad. He is the secretary of the IIM Ahmedabad Alumni Association. He says the IIM fee-cut move is wrong.

In the wake of the recent repeated instances of the ministry of human resource development's onslaught on IIMs and IITs (Indian Institutes of Management and Indian Institutes of Technology), it may be pertinent to refer to the January 24 issue of The Economist which has the cover title 'Pay or Decay: The University Crisis.'

The substance of it is that if the universities are to be truly free and sustainable, most students will have to pay the required high fees.

• IIMs: Triumphs and Tribulations
• 'Don't tinker with the IIMs'
•  'Fee reduction has paralysed IIMs'
• 'Fee cut will harm IIM prestige'

There is another major article in the same issue the essence of which is: "All around the world, when universities depend on taxpayers (read 'government'), their independence and standards suffer."

These write-ups also make another crucial point: the educational institutions should have the right to choose the intake.

One of the major arguments behind HRD ministry's onslaught on IITs and IIMs has been that these are elitist institutions and the entire hypothesis behind its various moves is that those from poor background are unable to get into these institutions because of their high fees.

Unfortunately for the ministry, this is just not true and is not based on facts. As someone has rightly said recently, in the history of IITs and IIMs, there has not been even a single student who was selected for admission in these institutions but could not study because of want of finances.

I myself came from an extremely poor family, where during my childhood it was often that my family did not have even one meal a day.

However, I could study at IIT-Delhi because I got a merit scholarship from NCERT. At IIM-Ahmedabad, I took a loan from State Bank of India and paid it back with interest within three years.

I am convinced that whatever I am today (I have worked in senior positions with leading companies like Indian Rayon, Reliance and American multinational DuPont) and whatever I have achieved has been entirely possible because of my education at IIT-Delhi and IIM-Ahmedabad.

And there are many, many more cases like mine.

In fact, I am of the firm belief that reservations of all kinds existing for so long and continuing endlessly should also be done away with since these lead to avoidable complacency and undermining of people, process, positions and purpose.

All those who have the merit but not the means can always get scholarships and educational loans, which are now more easily available, especially for IITs and IIMs.

Unless the ongoing onslaught on IITs and IIMs is stopped and various retrograde steps are reversed immediately, everyone is going to be a loser -- including the government and the nation.

- As told to Priya Ganapati