Hotel management in India: IHMs vs private institutes, fees and where each leads

The government route is a three-year B.Sc in Hospitality and Hotel Administration at an IHM, entered through NCHM JEE, at about ₹3.4 lakh in council fees (NCHMCT). Private degrees such as WGSHA Manipal and IHM-Aurangabad take four years and cost about ₹20 lakh. Oberoi's STEP and OCLD charge nothing and pay an allowance.

What is the IHM system, and who runs it?

The IHM system is a network of colleges that all teach the same syllabus, set by one body. That body is the National Council for Hotel Management and Catering Technology (NCHMCT), set up in 1982 under the Ministry of Tourism. Its courses run at 21 central IHMs, 33 state government IHMs, one public sector institute, two state IHMs run as public-private partnerships, and 25 private institutes (NCHM JEE 2026 bulletin). The council says it has trained more than one lakh hospitality managers, executives and operational staff (NCHM JEE 2026 bulletin).

The three kinds of affiliated college differ in who funds them, not in what they teach:

• Central IHMs are funded by the Ministry of Tourism. The 2026 list includes IHM Pusa (Delhi), Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and its Tirupati campus, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Goa, AIHM Chandigarh and others. Ashok IHTM in Delhi is listed separately as a central PSU institute.
• State IHMs are run by state governments. Examples on the list include DIHM Lajpat Nagar in Delhi, SIHM Kozhikode, SIHM Jodhpur and SIHM Dehradun. State reservation rules apply at these colleges, not the central ones.
• Private IHMs under NCHMCT affiliation follow the council syllabus but set their own fees within a cap. The 2026 list includes The Lalit Suri Hospitality School in Faridabad, Chitkara School of Hospitality, the FHRAI institute in Greater Noida and St. Francis IHM in Mumbai.

The full list, with institute codes, is in Annexure II of the bulletin. Check it before you fill in choices, because the list changes year to year.

What is the B.Sc HHA, and what does it lead to?

The B.Sc HHA is a three-year, six-semester degree. It is offered by NCHMCT and recognised by Jawaharlal Nehru University. The bulletin says it trains students to take on "supervisory responsibilities in the Hospitality sector". Under NEP 2020 there may be an optional fourth year for an honours degree (NCHM JEE 2026 bulletin).

The course is hands-on. It covers food production, food and beverage service and rooms division (front office and housekeeping) in training kitchens and restaurants, then adds marketing, finance, HR, revenue management and facility planning. In practice that means graduates usually start as trainees or supervisors in one of those departments, in hotels, restaurants, flight and rail catering, cruise lines, hospitals or institutional catering.

How do I get into an IHM?

Through one exam. NCHM JEE is conducted by the National Testing Agency, and every affiliated institute uses its score for B.Sc HHA admission. After results, NCHMCT runs the counselling that allots seats.

The 2026 cycle shows how it works:

• Eligibility: pass Class XII or an equivalent, with English as a subject. You can sit the exam while still in Class XII.
• Age: no age limit. That makes it open to career-changers and graduates.
• The paper: 120 multiple-choice questions in two hours. Forty-five are English. The rest are aptitude for service (30), numerical ability (15), reasoning (15) and general knowledge (15). Each correct answer scores four marks and each wrong one loses one.
• Dates: applications ran from 26 December 2025 to 25 January 2026, and the exam was on 25 April 2026.
• Exam fee: ₹1,000 for General and OBC-NCL, ₹700 for General-EWS, and ₹450 for SC, ST, PwD and third-gender candidates (NCHM JEE 2026 bulletin).
• Fitness: you must give a medical certificate that you can carry out practical classes.

Watch the NTA's NCHM JEE page from December for the 2027 bulletin. Dates and fees may change.

What does an IHM degree cost?

The council fixes one fee table for every affiliated IHM. For the 2025–28 batch, the first semester costs ₹72,915. That covers the admission fee, the NCHMCT and JNU enrolment fees, ₹46,500 tuition, the exam fee and an ₹8,000 refundable caution deposit. Each of the next five semesters costs ₹53,000 (NCHMCT fee letter, February 2025). Added up, that is ₹3,37,915 for the three years (NCHMCT).

Three things move that number:

• City. IHMs in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad may charge up to 40% more tuition. Those in Gandhinagar, Jaipur, Lucknow, Bhopal and Chandigarh may charge up to 24% more. Everywhere else has no discretion (NCHMCT).
• Private affiliates. Private institutes under NCHMCT may set tuition at no more than double the council's figure (NCHMCT).
• Hostel and extras. The council's table does not include a hostel. Expect the institute to charge hostel, mess and smaller fees separately, and ask for them in writing.

That fee letter covers the 2025–28 batch only. We could not find a published table for the 2026–29 batch, so treat these as the latest official figures, not next year's.

Which private institutes stand out, and what do they cost?

We looked at two private schools that publish their full fee on their own websites and are tied to a hotel company. Both are four-year degrees and both cost about five to six times the council's IHM fee.

Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration (WGSHA), Manipal. This is part of Manipal Academy of Higher Education, and works in partnership with ITC Hotels. The Bachelor of Hotel Management lasts four years and includes a compulsory six-month internship. For 2026 admissions the total programme fee was ₹20,06,000 for Indian students and USD 31,600 for NRI and foreign students (MAHE). The page does not say whether hostel is included, so ask. Admission is by an online application, then the MET entrance test, then a personal interview and a merit list. NRI candidates are exempt from the test. MAHE reports a highest domestic offer of ₹9.8 lakh a year and an average of ₹3.45 lakh a year, without naming the batch (MAHE).

Institute of Hotel Management, Aurangabad (IHM-A). IHM-A is managed by the Taj group (IHCL). Its degrees are awarded by the University of Huddersfield in the UK, and it trains students in a Taj-managed five-star training hotel on campus (IHM-A). It offers a four-year Bachelor in Hotel Management with Honours and a separate Bachelor of Culinary Arts. The third year is an industry internship. It lists AICTE approval and UK QAA audits of the Huddersfield partnership (IHM-A).

Its fee page is unusually clear. For the batch that started in 2025–26, academic fees are ₹2,10,000 a year, or ₹8,40,000 over four years. Room, food, student facilities, uniform and a refundable deposit add ₹11,60,000, with nothing charged for these in the internship year. The all-in total is ₹20,00,000 (IHM-A fees). Admission is by application, an eligibility check, then a discussion and interview, with a ₹2,500 non-refundable application fee (IHM-A admission). The institute reports a 100% placement rate for the class of 2024 and names Taj, Marriott, Accor and Hilton among its recruiters (IHM-A placement).

Other private universities run hotel management degrees outside the NCHMCT system. We have left them out here because we could not check their fees and outcomes on their own pages to the same standard.

Can I get paid to train instead?

Yes, if you are young enough and willing to start inside one hotel company. The Oberoi Group runs two programmes that charge no fee and pay a monthly allowance.

STEP, after Class XII. STEP is a three-year programme of on-the-job training at Oberoi and Trident hotels, alongside a correspondence Bachelor's in Tourism Studies from IGNOU. You must have passed Class XII, be over 18 and under 20 on 15 August of the joining year, and have scored at least 60% in Class X English (Oberoi STEP). Streams are front office and F&B service, housekeeping, and kitchen. The company pays the IGNOU fee and books, duty meals, transport, medical insurance, uniforms and, in some locations, housing. Graduates join the group as Operations Assistants.

OCLD, after graduation. The Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development in Delhi runs 18- to 24-month management programmes. They mix classroom teaching with work at Oberoi and Trident hotels (Oberoi Group). Applicants need a degree and must be over 19 and under 25 on 1 July. The kitchen management stream requires a hotel management degree. Selection runs from campus interviews in August to final results in January, and the programme starts in July. Trainees receive an allowance and a postgraduate diploma from OCLD, and the group says most of its heads of department and general managers are OCLD graduates (Oberoi OCLD). The group says it charges no fee for interviews or jobs.

The trade-off is choice. You train inside one company's standards and hotels, and the age windows are tight.

How do the routes compare?

Which route suits whom?

Start with budget and age, then career goal.

• Tight budget, any age: a central or state IHM. The council fee is the lowest in this guide, there is no age limit, and the degree is the same at all of them. A C-category city keeps tuition at the base rate.
• School-leaver who wants to earn while studying: apply to STEP if you meet the age and Class X English rules. You will not choose your employer, but you will not pay fees.
• Graduate in any subject who wants hotel management: OCLD, if you are under 25. If you are older, NCHM JEE has no age limit, so a B.Sc HHA is still open.
• Chef or kitchen career: every route here teaches food production, but IHM-Aurangabad offers a separate culinary arts degree, and OCLD's kitchen management stream needs a hotel management degree first, so a B.Sc HHA keeps that option open.
• Want an international degree or work abroad: IHM-Aurangabad's degree is awarded by a UK university. Whether that counts for jobs or further study abroad depends on the country, so check what your target country accepts before you pay.
• Can afford a private fee and want a smaller campus tied to one hotel group: compare WGSHA (ITC) and IHM-Aurangabad (Taj) side by side. Ask each for the named placement list, starting salaries and whether hostel is included.

How we chose

We started from the NCHMCT system, because it trains the largest number of students to one national syllabus. We then added private institutes and trainee programmes only where the institute itself publishes its fee, duration and entry route on an official page we could open. We compared routes on those checkable facts: fee, duration, entry route, awarding body and any placement figures the institute publishes. We did not rank by reputation, and we did not use fee or placement figures from college-listing websites. Inclusion is not an endorsement.

Last verified: 25 October 2026.

Worked example: total fees for a B.Sc HHA by city

These figures are illustrative. We worked them out from the council's 2025–28 fee table to show what the city rules can mean. Your IHM may charge less than the maximum, and hostel is extra in every case.

• IHM in a C-category city (no discretion): ₹3,37,915 for three years.
• IHM in an A-category city charging the full 40% extra on tuition: total tuition of ₹2,96,500 rises by ₹1,18,600, giving a maximum of ₹4,56,515.
• Private NCHMCT institute charging double tuition: tuition becomes ₹5,93,000, giving a maximum of ₹6,34,415.

Even at the highest of these, an NCHMCT degree costs well under half of the two private four-year degrees above.