New Delhi — India’s education ministry has been slow to put in place recommended changes in the country’s moribund higher-education system, said the chairman of the commission charged by the prime minister with designing the reform package, according to Mail Today.

Sam Pitroda, chairman of the National Knowledge Commission, which was established in 2005 to develop a road map for transforming India’s education system, told reporters that the group had been granted an extension, to March 31, 2009. It had originally been set to disband this month.

Mr. Pitroda said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had asked the commission to focus on carrying out its many suggestions for educational reform. The chairman blamed the Ministry of Human Resource Development, which is in charge of higher education, for the lackluster progress.

According to the article in Mail Today, on Page 14 in the digital newspaper, the main sticking point has been the commission’s suggestion that India set up an independent regulatory authority for higher education to supersede the present alphabet soup of regulators, several of which are believed to be corrupt, incompetent, or both.

“An independent regulatory authority is not practical,” R.P. Agarwal, a ministry official, was quoted as saying. “The stand of the ministry is that it is impractical and not acceptable. Academicians have also said the same thing.”

The National Knowledge Commission has made more than 200 recommendations on education, health, science, entrepreneurship, and e-governance since it was set up. —Shailaja Neelakantan