In its new Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, set to be introduced in Parliament this session, the Union government has proposed an “overhaul of the regulatory framework” of higher education in India by establishing a 12-member Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA) umbrella commission, under which separate regulatory (viniyaman), accreditation (gunvatta), and standards (manak) councils will operate.
This Bill, listed in the Lok Sabha bulletin for the Winter Session of Parliament this year, seeks to subsume the functions of the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education, and the National Council for Teachers’ Education. It further proposes that the UGC’s grants-disbursal function be performed “through mechanisms devised by the Ministry of Education”.
Citing its pursuit of the National Education Policy, 2020, which envisioned a “light but tight” regulatory framework, the government, in the Statement of Objects and Reasons, said the Bill would “enable and empower universities and other higher educational institutions to achieve excellence in teaching, learning, research and innovation, as an outcome of better co-ordination and determination of standards in institutions for higher education or research and scientific and technical institutions”.
In this Bill, the government has provided for the creation of the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA), which will consist of 12 members. The Viksit Bharat Viniyaman Parishad (regulatory), the Viksit Bharat Gunvatta Parishad (accreditation), and the Viksit Bharat Manak Parishad (standards) will operate under this, with up to 14 members each.
The law is proposed to be applicable to all Central and State universities, colleges, and higher education institutions, including those for technical education, teacher education, architects’ education, institutions of national importance, and institutes of eminence. It has exempted professional programmes in disciplines such as Medicine, Dentistry, Law, Pharmacology, Nursing, and Veterinary Sciences.
The government added that the Council of Architecture would continue to function as a professional standards setting body, and would have representation on all three councils under the VBSA. The government said, “Thus, the CoA would set the standards or expectations in its particular field of learning and practice while having no regulatory role.”
The VBSA is proposed to function like “an apex umbrella body” that is meant to direct the “comprehensive and holistic growth of higher education” and ensure coordination between the three councils. The Standards Council would determine academic standards in the institutes and “would ensure synchronisation”; the Regulatory Council would “coordinate and maintain” standards, and the Accreditation Council would supervise and oversee an “independent ecosystem of accreditation”, the government explained.
While the Bill gives the Accreditation Council a mandate to develop an “outcome-based institutional accreditation framework”, it has mandated the Regulatory Council to set standards for Centre-approved foreign universities to operate in India, “facilitate high-performing universities” to set up campuses abroad, and develop a “coherent policy to prevent commercialisation of higher education”, among others.
Widespread criticism
A rudimentary version of this Bill was brought in 2018 by the erstwhile Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) as the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI) Bill. This had received widespread criticism and suggestions from scholars, teachers’ associations, and State governments for a host of reasons, including the Centre having disproportionate power in appointments, and taking away grant-disbursal powers from a UGC-like body.
However, unlike the HECI Bill, which proposed just the one HECI, the VBSA Bill sets up an overarching commission in the VBSA, under which the Regulatory, Accreditation, and Standards Councils would function. Presidents of each of these councils would have a spot reserved in the VBSA, in addition to which the VBSA would consist of the Secretary, Education Ministry as an ex officio member. Apart from them, the VBSA would draw from two professors at State higher educational institutes, have a member-secretary, and five eminent experts as members.
In the councils, however, the Bill has provided for a member to be nominated by the State or union territory governments, in addition to ex officio members.
Graded penalties
In the punitive powers granted to the VBSA in this proposed legislation, the government has suggested graded penalties, with fines starting from ₹10 lakh for the first instances of violation, and going up to ₹75 lakh or even closure of the institute for repeated violations of these guidelines. The law also provides the VBSA with the power to suspend the institute’s powers to grant certificates, degrees, or diplomas for violations as well. Institutes found operating without accreditation may be liable for fines upwards of ₹2 crore.
The government cited the NEP, 2020, to justify taking away grant-disbursal powers from the regulatory authority. In the financial memorandum of the Bill, it said, “the function of funding should be segregated from the councils performing the functions of academic standard setting, regulation and accreditation”. It said this function would now be “ensured through mechanisms devised by the Ministry of Education”, without elaborating on the mechanisms.
Batting for the “required regulatory reforms”, the government said that with this Bill, “The present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.”
Published – December 14, 2025 09:53 pm IST
