New Delhi: A proposal has been submitted to the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) by the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) - Bangalore, suggesting that the size of the institute's Board of Governors (BoG) be decreased from the original 26 members to 16 members.

The proposal came as a surprise after the recommendations of the R.C. Bhargava Committee had been widely criticized and panned by all IIMs previously. Now, IIM - Bangalore as well as IIM - Ahmedabad have decided to look into one recommendation by the committee, to reduce the number of members in the Institutes' BoG.

The proposal is also a part of a bigger recommendation to amend the Memorandum of Association (MoA) that addresses several governance concerns. IIM - Ahmedabad, like IIM - Bangalore has also submitted a proposal to decrease the size of their 28 - member BoG to 15 members. The HRD ministry has been open to the idea and the other IIMs in the country are expected to follow suit.

While the BoG at IIM Ahmedabad is headed by Vijaypat Singhania, Chairman of Raymond's, IIM Bangalore is headed by Reliance CMD Mukesh Ambani.

Earlier, it had been agreed upon by most IIMs that reducing the size of the Board of Governors would be a good idea as it would enable the IIMs to include 10-12 eminent members along with government representatives.

The Bhargava Committee in 2008 had recommended for all IIMs to have board of governors constituting of only 11 members instead of the usual 24-25 members. According to the committee suggestions, six of these members would be independent professionals and five of them would be a nominee each from the central and state governments, a faculty member, the Chairman of the IIM as well as the director.