According to Moily, the panel has recommended building new institutions as part of the infrastructure-building exercise, like new IIMs, IITs. While he said the committee has recommended to set up three new IIMs, no such number has been specified for IITs.

Sources said the HRD ministry had pitched for 5 IIMs, 3 IITs, 3 IISERs, 4 SPAs (School of Planning and Architecture) and 20 IIITs (Indian Institute of Information Technology). But the committee didn’t agree with the Ministry on this list.

However, a couple of new agricultural and medical institutions have been recommended in the final report, confirmed sources in the Oversight committee.

For building new institutions, the Oversight Committee has recommended exploring the option of “public-private partnership”, which has long been opposed by the HRD Ministry but is advocated by the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission. Moily said, “For building these institutions, we have recommended going for public-private partnerships. The private sector can be allowed for funding these institutions.”

The committee has revised the entire expenditure — both on recurring and non-recurring — at Rs 17,200 crore, up from Rs 16,600 crore stated in the interim report.

“The money will be footed by the government and there will be no delay in that,” Moily said.

The committee has also asked for review of the OBC quota policy after five or 10 years of implementation. The committee, he said, has however made a “strong paragraph”, meaning recommendation, to provide scholarships to OBC children from Standard IX onward.

On the contentious creamy layer issue, the committee has refused to tread. “We have left it for the government to decide,” Moily said. The committee has also not ventured into the question of unaided institutions, saying that they were “out of the Oversight committee’s ambit”.