One institute · run through the decision tool
Should you take an IICT diploma?
That depends on which of three people you are. This page runs IICT — the Indian Institute of Commerce and Trade, Lucknow — through the same method as the rest of OnlineMBA.me: your situation first, the institute second, and a straight verdict for each — including the situation where the verdict is walk away.
- 3
- situations
- 1
- walk-away verdict
- 2
- awarding bodies
Situation oneYou need the skills, and you need them now
You have been moved into a role that assumes commercial vocabulary you never formally learned — pricing, working capital, people management — and the next appraisal will not wait two years. Nobody is asking to see a certificate; you are asking to stop feeling out of your depth.
When no rule is auditing your award, the only thing that matters is whether the syllabus closes your gap. Read the module list before you pay, not the brochure.
Here is what you are actually buying. IICT is an autonomous institute that has operated out of Lucknow since 1997, with its legal footing as a society under the 1860 Act. It awards its own diplomas. Those diplomas are not UGC degrees — they sit outside UGC purview, and the institute does not claim otherwise. In this situation, that honesty works in your favour: you are not paying for a regulator's stamp you do not need.
One caution before you commit: if what you are really doing is changing function rather than topping up the one you are in, that is a different decision with different maths — our career-change page walks through it.
Situation twoA rule somewhere says “degree”
A promotion matrix, a government notification, an admission requirement for further study. Somewhere in your life there is a sentence with the word degree in it, and you are shopping for the thing that satisfies that sentence.
An IICT diploma is a diploma. It will not satisfy a line that says “postgraduate degree”, however good the teaching was, and no amount of appeal will change the wording.
We say that bluntly because rule-driven readers lose the most money on pages that fudge it. But walking away from the diploma does not mean walking away from the institute — because IICT also operates a second, entirely separate route.
For Swami Vivekanand Subharti University (SVSU) at Meerut — accredited NAAC A — IICT works as the distance learning centre. The MBA on that route is a university-awarded, UGC-entitled degree in distance/online mode: ₹65,000 covering both years, taken as a dual specialisation — pick two of Operations Management, Marketing, Finance, Strategic Management and Human Resource Management. Keep the two bodies straight, because they are not interchangeable: the teaching, mentoring and study support are IICT's; the degree and the entitlement are SVSU's. Your certificate comes from the university.
Before you pay anyone a rupee, read the actual rule you are trying to satisfy. Our promotion-eligibility page covers how to read a promotion matrix, and the government-job page explains why the notification text — not the university's marketing — is the only document that counts.
Situation threeYour employer is paying
There is budget on the table — a learning allowance, a tuition-assistance scheme, a manager who said “find a programme and we will cover it”. The money is not your problem; picking the award that survives the reimbursement audit is.
Ask whoever owns the budget a single question: does the policy text say “degree”? The answer decides which IICT route you take — or whether you take neither.
If the scheme funds professional development — skills, short programmes, capability building — the diploma route qualifies and is the smaller commitment of your evenings. If the policy says “recognised degree” or “postgraduate degree”, only the SVSU degree route described above will survive finance's scrutiny, because only that award comes from a university. Get the answer in writing before you enrol, not after.
And whatever the route: if there is a service bond attached to the funding, read it before you sign. Our employer-paying page covers what to check in the bond — it is the same checklist whichever institution you pick.
The question under all three: is IICT legitimate?
Here is what can be checked. IICT has run as a registered society since 1997. On its employment record sit HDFC, the Indian Army, Reliance, Tata and ICICI — public-sector and mainstream corporate India. It holds an academic MoU with Amity University; weigh that as institutional collaboration and nothing more, because it produces no qualification for you as a student.
On the diploma-versus-degree anxiety itself, history is reassuring: degree-awarding powers reached the IIMs only with the IIM Act of 2018. Before that each was a society on the register, and its graduates left with a PGDM — a diploma at postgraduate level — which nobody held against them. That does not make a diploma a degree; situation two above shows it plainly does not. The lesson is that “society-awarded diploma” is a structure, not a verdict. The verdict comes from whether the award fits the sentence your career is trying to satisfy.
The short sheet
Is an IICT diploma a degree?
No. A diploma is what IICT grants under its own name — no UGC degree status, beyond UGC purview, and the institute says so itself. The degree reachable through IICT is a separate award altogether: the distance MBA, UGC-entitled, of Swami Vivekanand Subharti University; IICT serves as centre while the university signs the degree.
Will an IICT diploma satisfy a rule that asks for a postgraduate degree?
No. A diploma cannot satisfy an eligibility line that says degree, however good the teaching. If your promotion rule, notification or admission requirement names a degree, take the SVSU degree route — a two-year, UGC-entitled MBA awarded by the university — or do not enrol at all.
What does the degree route through IICT cost?
Both years together come to ₹65,000 for the Swami Vivekanand Subharti University distance MBA (the university holds NAAC A accreditation). Structure: a dual specialisation, picking two of Operations Management, Marketing, Finance, Strategic Management and Human Resource Management.
Is IICT a legitimate institute?
IICT has operated out of Lucknow since 1997 as an autonomous institute, its legal footing a society registration under the 1860 Act. It is plain about what it awards: its own diplomas, not degrees. Employers on its record include HDFC, the Indian Army, Reliance, Tata and ICICI. Whether it is right for you depends on whether a diploma fits your situation.