The IIM Act, 2017
For thirty years, an IIM awarded a diploma — not a degree
It made no difference to anyone hiring, and that is the most useful thing to understand about Indian management qualifications. Here is what changed in 2018, what your certificate says, and the narrow set of cases where the distinction decides something.
The short answer
Before January 2018: the IIM flagship was the Post Graduate Programme in Management, and it awarded a Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM). A diploma. The IIMs were registered societies, and a society cannot grant a degree in India.
Since then: the Indian Institutes of Management Act, 2017 came into force and the same programme awards an MBA. A degree. The Fellow Programme became a PhD.
The most competitive management qualification in the country was a diploma for three decades, and no employer discounted it. If you take one thing from this page, take that: the instrument and the reputation are different things. Ask what a rule in your path requires, not which word sounds more official.
What the Act changed, precisely
| Before the Act | After the Act | |
|---|---|---|
| Legal form | Registered societies | Institutions of National Importance, by Act of Parliament |
| Flagship award | Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDM) | MBA — a degree |
| Doctoral award | Fellow Programme in Management (FPM) | PhD |
| Governance | Society rules | Statutory board under the Act |
| Since 2023 | — | An amendment brought the former NITIE in as IIM Mumbai |
When the difference decides something
| Situation | Does diploma vs degree matter? |
|---|---|
| Private-sector hiring | Almost never. The institute name carries it, as it did for thirty years. |
| Indian government recruitment | Often yes. Where the notification names a postgraduate degree, a diploma may not satisfy it. |
| PhD admission | Usually yes. Most doctoral programmes ask for a master’s degree. |
| Credential evaluation abroad | Yes. Foreign evaluators assess a diploma and a degree differently. |
| A promotion policy naming a degree | Yes, and it is the most common reason people re-qualify. |
All 21 IIMs, by when they were set up
Generation is not a quality ranking — every institute below awards the same MBA under the same Act. It does tell you how much alumni network and placement history exists to draw on.
| Institute | Established | Location |
|---|---|---|
| The first two · Set up on the recommendation of the Planning Commission, with Harvard and MIT involvement. | ||
| IIM Ahmedabad | 1961 | Ahmedabad, Gujarat |
| IIM Calcutta | 1961 | Kolkata, West Bengal |
| IIM Mumbai | 1963 | Mumbai, Maharashtra |
| 1970s and 80s · Added as demand outgrew two campuses. | ||
| IIM Bangalore | 1973 | Bengaluru, Karnataka |
| IIM Lucknow | 1984 | Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh |
| The 1990s · The liberalisation-era expansion. | ||
| IIM Indore | 1996 | Indore, Madhya Pradesh |
| IIM Kozhikode | 1996 | Kozhikode, Kerala |
| 2007 to 2011 · The first big wave of new IIMs. | ||
| IIM Shillong | 2007 | Shillong, Meghalaya |
| IIM Ranchi | 2009 | Ranchi, Jharkhand |
| IIM Rohtak | 2009 | Rohtak, Haryana |
| IIM Raipur | 2010 | Raipur, Chhattisgarh |
| IIM Kashipur | 2011 | Kashipur, Uttarakhand |
| IIM Tiruchirappalli | 2011 | Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu |
| IIM Udaipur | 2011 | Udaipur, Rajasthan |
| 2015 onwards · The newest institutes — a label that says nothing about what they award. | ||
| IIM Amritsar | 2015 | Amritsar, Punjab |
| IIM Bodh Gaya | 2015 | Bodh Gaya, Bihar |
| IIM Nagpur | 2015 | Nagpur, Maharashtra |
| IIM Sambalpur | 2015 | Sambalpur, Odisha |
| IIM Sirmaur | 2015 | Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh |
| IIM Visakhapatnam | 2015 | Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh |
| IIM Jammu | 2016 | Jammu, Jammu & Kashmir |
The precedent, and why it is worth knowing
India draws a hard line between a degree, which only a university can award, and a diploma, which an autonomous institute awards under its own name. The IIMs sat on the diploma side of that line until 2018 and were never the lesser thing for it.
That precedent is why an autonomous institute’s own award is worth judging on the institute rather than on the word. It is also why the honest question is never “degree or diploma?” in the abstract — it is “does any rule in my path name a degree?” If the answer is no, you are free to buy the teaching rather than the instrument.
Frequently asked
Is an IIM MBA a degree or a diploma?
Both, depending on when you graduated. Until the IIM Act came into force in January 2018, an IIM flagship programme awarded a Post Graduate Diploma in Management — a diploma, because the IIMs were registered societies rather than universities and had no power to grant degrees. Since the Act, they award an MBA, which is a degree.
So was the old IIM PGP worth less?
No, and this is the point worth understanding. For thirty years the most sought-after management qualification in India was formally a diploma. Employers never cared. The instrument and the reputation are separate things — which is why “is it a degree?” is the wrong first question and “what do I need it for?” is the right one.
What did the IIM Act 2017 actually change?
Three things. It declared the IIMs Institutions of National Importance. It gave them the power to grant degrees — MBA in place of the PGDM, and a PhD in place of the Fellow Programme title. And it gave each institute statutory governance through its own board rather than society rules.
I graduated before 2018. Do I have a degree?
Your certificate says what it says: a Post Graduate Diploma in Management. Some IIMs have offered alumni a route to conversion or to formal equivalence — that is institute by institute, so ask yours directly. Do not assume it happens automatically.
When does diploma versus degree actually matter?
When a written rule names a degree: Indian government recruitment, PhD admission, some professional registrations, and formal credential evaluation abroad. For ordinary private-sector hiring it has almost never mattered.
Is IIM Mumbai a new IIM?
It is new as an IIM and old as an institute. It ran as the National Institute of Industrial Engineering from 1963 and was brought into the IIM family by the 2023 amendment to the Act.