The Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM) is a sectoral management institute which comes under Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. IIFM is the only institute across Asia to provide diploma is Forest Management with specialisation in Development Management, Environment Management and Conservation and Livelihood Management.

The Institute has a mixed faculty base including people from academics as well as from the forest department. But when we talk about the Directors at IIFM, almost all of them come from administrative backgrounds (IFS – Indian Forrest Services). Till date approximately 15 people have taken the charge as director of IIFM on permanent as well as temporary basis. Out of these 15 directors, only 1 director Dr. DK Bandhopadyay was an academician and had served as Dean and Acting Director of IIM Lucknow prior to taking the charge as director of IIFM. Interestingly, all permanent directors at IIFM are from Madhya Pradesh Cadre except one which is against the spirit of an Institute of National Importance.

Another point we should consider here is other institutes of national importance like IIMs and IITs also comes under a ministry that is ministry of HRD but the choice of directors for such institutes have never been people from administrative/ Engineering services rather the directors are selected on the basis of their academic excellence. Here it is worth comparing advertisement for selection of director of IIM Tiruchirappalli with IIFM. The links to both the advertisements are as follows:

Link to advertisement for the search of Director of IIFM​

Link to the advertisement for the search of Director of IIM Tiruchirappalli

The selection criteria for the director of IIFM are made such that people with academic/ research backgrounds find it difficult to qualify for it. Some of the criteria which aren’t relevant for directors of an academic institute but are a part of selection criteria for the director of IIFM are detailed below

·         As per first criterion - Pay Scale should be “HAG Rs.75,500-80,000” for the person to apply for directors post. Other Management institutes don’t have these criteria.

·         Second criterion says – “Officer or academician of the govt./universities/other institute”. Why do we need an officer to run the educational Institute, instead the criterion should be an academician having administrative experience of managing the educational institute.

·         As per third criterion - A person who has done Ph. D and is having 20 years of administrative experience is also eligible for Director post

The key criteria of having an experience in teaching and research are vague and not quantified for the selection of director of IIFM whereas if we see the selection criteria for IIM T, the requirement is minimum 15 years of experience in teaching /research with minimum 7 years of full time teaching experience and only 5 years of administrative experience.

Even if any academician qualifies the selection criteria for the director of IIFM, it becomes difficult for her/ him to get through the interview as the selection committee is heavily dominated by forest officers. Ideally, selection committee should be a mixed group of eminent persons coming from various facets of the industry and should have strong academic involvement.

Moreover, if we look at the faculty areas at IIFM, there are 9 faculty areas of which one focuses on Forestry so the director of the institute can be from other faculty areas also for creating a great mix.

Further, if we see the placements trends of students at IIFM, not even 1% of the students are placed in the forest departments. The major recruiters are consulting firms, Banks, NGOs, Funding agencies and similar organisations. Having a director with industrial links can be beneficial in supporting the placement processes at IIFM.

As it is said, change is constant, IIFM too needs a change and the first step can be of having an academic leadership of the institute. With the completion of the tenure of last Director of IIFM, Dr. GA Kinhal, the search of new director has begun. We the alumni and other stakeholders of this prestigious institute should come forward to free our institute from bureaucracy.