There is only one university in India which has autonomy on budget setting, recruits its own students, has flexible HR policies, etc., and this is the Indian School of Business. It is perhaps logical that, in 2008, ISB was ranked the 20th best MBA programme by The Financial Times, and in 2009 this rank was improved to 15. None of the IIMs feature anywhere. This is a striking contrast between enormous state expenditures on the IIMs failing to yield measurable results when compared with an alternative which has landed India in the top rankings of the world.

Universities will not be built overnight. But the framework that can lay the foundations for this change can be laid under UPA II over the next 100 days.

The writer is a senior fellow at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Delhi express@expressindia.com