Peanuts for IIM, caviar for cricket?
Raju Narisetti -
Sunday, August 24, 2008 7:39 AM
A news article in The Times of India on 24 August about salary packages proposed for new, paid selectors who will pick cricket teams for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (Read this BCCI story here) made me wonder about how skewed our national priorities are in light of an earlier posting on this blog about what the Indian government wants to pay for the next director of the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode (See that post and related comments here).
The BCCI, relatively free of government control and rather rich, is proposing an annual salary of Rs2.5 million for "senior" selectors and Rs1.5 million for "junior" selectors. Meanwhile the advertised total current compensation for the next director of IIM Kozhikode is Rs600,000, even if some revisions are in store.
Meanwhile, the TOI's sister paper, The Economic Times, is reporting that nine months after advertising for the next director of IIM Lucknow, the government still hasn't made up its mind, leaving that Institute headless after 24 August. Read that story here.
So, while this sorry state of affairs plays out at all the existing IIMs (There are IIMs at Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Kolkata, Lucknow, Kozhikode and Indore), the government has announced plans for seven more IIM campuses. And. unless there is a serious rethinking of the government's involvement and interference followed by actual letting go of these MBA schools so free market conditions prevail, there will be a crisis of true leadership and talent at India's top management schools. Left up to themselves, India's IIM's may not be as profitable as BCCI but have the potential, as a group, to make the right calls on governance and faculty salaries based on free market principles.
But back to cricket for a moment. Does anyone reading this think the job of selecting the best cricketers for India is that much harder when it comes to picking male cricketers? Especially in a country where men's cricket is all the rage and gets all the sponsorships?
Well, the BCCI surely thinks so. Why else would it suggest that the women selection committee members get only Rs600,000? I am glad the task of selecting cricketers is going to be a well compensated one for both men and women. But isn't the task of women selectors that much more difficult because, while there is women's cricket in India, it doesn't get the same attention or attract the same hordes of talented youngsters, making the job of selectors that much harder?
Equal pay for equal (or more) work, anyone?