New Delhi, June 25: The government-appointed Yash Pal committee on higher education has cautioned against allowing foreign universities to set up campuses in India, challenging human resource development minister Kapil Sibal’s plans to expedite their entry.

In a recommendation that could embarrass the government, the panel has argued that liberalising visa restrictions to allow foreign scholars access to Indian universities may prove more beneficial than letting in foreign universities.

The panel has also recommended in its report submitted to Sibal yesterday that any foreign university that sets up a campus here should give an “Indian degree” and follow all rules and regulations binding on Indian universities.

“One has to keep in mind the fact that universities grow in organic connection with their social, cultural and geographical surroundings and even the best of them cannot be transplanted somewhere else and expected to do as well,” the panel has said.

It has questioned “the purpose” that allowing such universities is going to achieve. “Don’t we want the best learning experiences to be shared by our students? If so, can this not be done by opening our doors to foreign scholars and making our rules more flexible?” the report asks.

The concern is that “giving an open licence to all and sundry carrying a foreign ownership tag to function like universities in India” will only help the institutions earn profits at the cost of Indians.

The top 200 best universities in the world would be welcome, but only if every rule and regulation applicable to Indian universities is applied to the foreign varsities too, the panel has said.

Top foreign universities have repeatedly argued that they will not come to India if their campuses are required to follow admission quotas for backward communities, mandatory for universities here.

The Left, which held up the UPA government for four years in its first term, had insisted that all regulations binding on Indian institutions, including quotas, should be mandatory for foreign education providers.

Sibal and Yash Pal

Former HRD minister Arjun Singh too had asserted that if foreign universities were to be let in, they should be required to follow norms governing Indian universities.

But with the UPA no longer dependent on the Left, the latest draft of the Foreign Education Providers Bill doesn’t include any quotas, government sources said. Arjun, too, is today an isolated Congressman with little influence on government policy.

But the Yash Pal panel, appointed by the UPA itself, has raised fresh questions over the bill at a time the government is looking to enact it.

The bill, which could not be tabled in Parliament during the UPA’s first tenure because of Left opposition, is a crucial part of minister Sibal’s 100-day agenda announced today. He indicated today that the bill might be tabled in the budget session, starting next month.

Earlier this month, visiting US under-secretary of state William Burns met Sibal to discuss the bill. Sibal is learnt to have informed Burns that the government was keen on US investment in Indian education.