New Delhi — India doesn’t want “third-grade” Western universities or other foreign universities that aren’t interested in complying with the country’s higher-education regulations, Arjun Singh, the minister in charge of higher education, told a local newspaper.

He added that inferior Western universities want to come to India because it is a “virgin area” and because they cannot compete in their own countries. “I am not opposed to it [foreign institutions], but the real universities should come,” he said.

The normally media-shy minister has lately been granting interviews to the press, after the country’s Supreme Court upheld a law imposing additional admissions quotas on public universities, a development that many see as a personal victory for Mr. Singh.

The higher-education minister opposes the unrestricted entry of foreign higher-education providers, is against large tuition increases at India’s public universities, and is in favor of government controls on admissions and tuition rates at the country’s private higher-education institutions.

Asked whether foreign universities interested in setting up shop in India did not want to be bound by regulations, Mr. Singh told the newspaper, “they certainly were not very favorable to complying with our regulations.” He also said that the government planned to impose quotas for disadvantaged classes on local, privately financed higher-education institutions as well.

“That is absolutely on the agenda,” he said. “The bill is ready.” He added that not imposing quotas on those institutions, which have greatly increased in number, would lead a huge share of the country’s disadvantaged people to be left out.

Mr. Singh said that the increase in quotas was no less than a social revolution. “Education,” he said, “is the only equalizer,” and the country will ultimately gain from the quotas. “We don’t want to have an elitist society.” —Shailaja Neelakantan