In contrast to the view taken by the government, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia on Wednesday welcomed the hike in fee by the IIMs and said that easy loans should be facilitated to make education more affordable in these institutes.

"What is important is that there should be loans. Any student that can get into IIMs should be able to finance his education through a loan", Ahluwalia told reporters on the sidelines of a conference to release the report of the High-Level committee on services sector.

Ahluwalia said he was told that the institutes have also introduced generous scholarships, adding, "It is not clear to me that the government should be subsidising that (IIM) kind of education".

The IIMs had decided to increase fees for their two-year post-graduate programmes.

IIM Ahmedabad increased the fee from Rs 500,000 for both the years of the course to Rs 11.5 lakh (Rs 1.15 million), while IIM Bangalore had decided to increase the fee to Rs 900,000 from Rs 500,000.

Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh had reportedly asked IIM Ahmedabad Governing Council Chairman Vijaypat Singhania to explain the 'unwarranted tripling of the fees'.

IIM Kolkata had similarly decided to increase the fee to Rs 600,000 for the entire course from Rs Rs 3,75,000 at present and similarly IIM Kozhikode decided to increase the fee to Rs 600,000 for the two-year programme from Rs 3,85,000.

In line with IIMs the prestigious IITs have also proposed a fee hike citing the need to improve their 'economic health.'