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”.
