Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C) has hiked fees for its flagship courses for 2014-16 batch blaming inflation.

"Four years back our tuition fee was hiked. So this year we decided to match it with IIM-A and IIM-B," IIMC Chairman of Board of Governors Ajit Balakrishnan said after the meeting on Saturday.

"With inflation rising, it is high time that the course fee is hiked to ensure that we could maintain the quality of our teaching learning," Balakrishnan said.

An IIM-C official, declining to be quoted, said the fees were raised by 20 per cent to Rs 16.2 lakh from Rs 13.5 lakh for the year''s PGDM and PGDCM programmes.

IIM-C had last raised its fees in 2010 when the escalation was 50 per cent.

Balakrishnan declined to quantify the fee hike that the board decided today.

However, he said, "We would use this excess amount in giving more scholarships. Currently we spend about Rs. 5 crore in scholarships, we want to add a few crores to that. We at IIM-C feel that if a student is meritorious then money should not be a constrain for them."It is learnt that IIM Rachi had raised its fees from Rs 9 lakh to Rs 10.5 lakh.

Meanwhile, IIM-C hosted its 49th Annual Convocation today with the vision of accelerating its journey towards globalisation.

"IIM-C also announced the signing of the MoU for Case Development Collaboration on March 19, 2014 between IIM-C and Ivey Business School to expand IIM-C's research network in North America and Ivey's research network,” IIM-C Director Saibal Chattopadhyay said.