Recently, the home affairs select panel had criticised the UK government for allowing the entry of tens of thousands of immigrants into Britain by getting admission into 'bogus colleges'.

'We were concerned after we saw that the number of students from Pakistan had increased from 7,000 to 28,000 in three years,' said Vaz, who was careful to underline that the issue was not a 'Pakistani problem' alone.

He, however, noted that there was no such trend of a comparable increase of Indian students.

He believed that there were 'hundreds of such colleges' that had cropped up in the UK in the last few years. Any clamping down was hampered by the fact that the majority of the inspections by authorities were scheduled ahead, so that there were no surprise visits.

The report had criticised the British government for not taking any measures to deal with the issue, despite earning warning about the problem of bogus colleges.

Vaz also said his committee was bringing out a report on the point-based immigration system, arguing for 'flexibility' in certain sectors with shortage of skills, like catering.

'The immigration system needs to rely less on points and more on experience,' he said.

(Devirupa Mitra can be contacted at devirupa.m@ians.in)