The Knowledge Commission appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that model Right to Educational Bill (RTE) "is flawed for a number of reasons" and ruled that the measures "must be enforced by the central government." Acknowledging that "there may be concerns about federalism, since school education is dominantly the responsibility of the state governments at present," the commission said that the "matter can be resolve through an appropriate central legislation."

The Human Resources Development (HRD) Ministry had proposed to shove the onus on implementing education required by a Federal legislation on the states but providing an avenue through which they can seek funds from the Federal Government. However, cash-strapped states dismissed this idea saying that financial assistance through Federal grants coming from a common pool will benefit only some states that have their act together. Therefore, they wanted the Federal Government to run the program directly or through equitable funding of the states through special purpose vehicles.

The HRD's intention was to punt this very hard but necessary idea in lieu of politically-beneficial and easy to implement reservation for Other Backward Classes (OBC). By denying children between the ages of 6 to 14, the HRD wanted to fund higher education in premier institutions.