New Delhi: Carrying forward their joint approach for a common and unified fee structure, the top brass of six prestigious IIMs (Indian Institute of Management) today (Jun 8, 2004) apprised the HRD Ministry of their "consensus" view on the controversial fee cut issue.

After the 90-minute meeting with Education Secretary S C Tripathi, the IIM directors said that "everything was going very well" and they were "very happy".

Though they declined to divulge details of their talks with the HRD officials, Ministry sources said the directors of the renowned B-Schools apprised the Government of the consensus view on fee structure taken by them on June six.

As per the timetable worked out at May 31 meeting with HRD Minister Arjun Singh, "The Directors will put up their proposals on the fees before individual Boards of Governors for decision before June 25," an official release said.

Parrying repeated queries by reporters, the IIM directors said, "The process is on and things were moving positively," thereby raising the prospects of a solution to the four-month old row over sharp fee cut from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 30,000 announced by former HRD Minister Murli Manohar Joshi.

The directors refused to reply to questions on quantum of fees they had agreed upon or the need-based scholarship for which they had unanimously adopted a resolution on Sunday (Jun 5, 2004).