The Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC) Director, Uttam Kumar Sarkar, is said to have resigned due to disagreements with the Board chairperson, Srikrishna Kulkarni, making him the second institute head in two years to leave before finishing a five-year term.
Sarkar is said to have resigned on August 23, and his resignation letter was sent to all members of the Board of Governors (BoG) last week. According to The Indian Express, Sarkar’s resignation has not yet been accepted and will be reviewed at the next Board meeting, which is set for this week, on Friday, September 8.
Sarkar was appointed director on August 18, 2021, with over three years remaining on his contract. Although Sarkar claimed personal reasons for his departure in his letter, sources at the institute said Sarkar was dissatisfied with Chairman Srikrishna Kulkarni’s “interference” in the institute’s operations and the completion of critical projects, reports add.
“There are projects that are stalled, and it can be frustrating for an institution head (to see them making no headway). For instance, the hostel expansion (project) has been stalled, which has come in the way of increasing the institute’s student capacity,” a source told The Indian Express.
So far, it’s unclear what the actual points of disagreement between the two were. When media tried reaching out to IIMC Chairman Kulkarni, he said he was temporary “out of the country” and didn’t want to say much on the issue. Whereas, Sarkar did not react to text messages or phone calls.
Sarkar took charge as the new Director of IIM Calcutta after succeeding Professor Anju Seth. Anju Seth, the first woman director of IIMC, resigned in March 2021, claiming a “breakdown of confidence” between her and Kulkarni. She still had over a year left on her term.
Seth accused Kulkarni of waging a smear campaign against her and publicly “maligning and denigrating” her with the board’s support in her resignation letter. She also stated that he had gained executive powers in order to “diminish the role of the director and faculty via persistent intervention, despite the fact that the position of chairman is a non-executive part-time position.”
Reportedly, many in the IIM community saw the conflict between Seth and the Board at the time as the result of a shift in power relations brought about by the new IIM Act of 2018. The 2018 bill gave the Boards of Governors of all 20 IIMs unrestricted rights and autonomy, and the government abandoned entire control.
Meanwhile, the education ministry recently introduced an amendment to the IIM Act during the monsoon session of Parliament, taking back many of the powers from the Board and giving the government a greater say in auditing the functioning of IIMs, ordering probes, and appointing and removing directors.
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