The VBSA Bill 2025 seeks to give statutory form to the NEP’s vision of “light but tight” regulation, but leaves most regulatory details and operationalisation of autonomy to future rules, while omitting a statutory funding framework altogether
Central to the vision of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is the creation of a “light but tight” regulatory architecture. This vision includes four independent verticals under the Higher Education Commission of India (HECI). The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill 2025 (VBSA Bill) seeks to operationalise this vision through statutory reform. This article evaluates the Bill by revisiting the rationale for the recommendations for its establishment in the draft NEP 2019 (DNEP 2019) by the Kasturirangan Committee, and then in the NEP.
NEP marked a fundamental shift in higher education governance through three interlinked reforms. First, it introduced the principle of “light but tight” regulation to ease institutional functioning, emphasising transparency, disclosure, and outcome-based accountability. Second, it proposed functional separation by establishing four autonomous, non-overlapping verticals for regulation, accreditation, funding, and academic standard-setting. Third, it promoted self-governing universities and granted autonomy within a trust-based, accountable regulatory environment. Together, these reforms aimed to replace fragmented, control-oriented regulation with a coherent, autonomy-driven, and performance-focused governance framework.
The VBSA Bill, in alignment with NEP, aims to simplify regulation, reduce bureaucratic overlap, strengthen quality assurance, and enhance institutional autonomy through functional differentiation.
Complying with overlapping and sometimes contradictory regulations issued by multiple regulatory authorities is a key challenge for multidisciplinary higher education institutions (HEIs). Broadly, the University Grants Commission (UGC) regulates general education, the All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) oversees technical education, such as engineering and management, and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) handles teacher education. Additionally, 17 professional councils, mostly in medical education, regulate education in their respective professions, further complicating compliance for HEIs offering multidisciplinary programmes. This complex regulatory landscape contradicts the NEP’s stated goal of encouraging all HEIs to offer multi-disciplinary education. To address this problem, the DNEP 2019 proposed converting all professional councils into professional standard-setting bodies, leaving regulatory oversight to a single regulator. Yet, the NEP kept medical and legal education outside the purview of the new regulatory architecture.
The VBSA Bill, in alignment with NEP, aims to simplify regulation, reduce bureaucratic overlap, strengthen quality assurance, and enhance institutional autonomy through functional differentiation. It proposes three specialised Councils: i) Viksit Bharat Shiksha Viniyaman Parishad (VBSVP), a Regulatory Council responsible for institutional recognition, governance oversight, financial probity, degree-awarding authorisations, and regulation of foreign and cross-border education; ii) Viksit Bharat Shiksha Gunvatta Parishad (VBSGP), an Accreditation Council tasked with outcome-based accreditation, supervision of accrediting agencies, public disclosure, and enforcement mechanisms; and iii) Viksit Bharat Shiksha Manak Parishad (VBSMP), a Standards Council mandated to define learning outcomes, qualification and credit frameworks, and minimum academic standards. The VBSA Commission is positioned as the apex coordinating body. It provides strategic direction, advises central and state governments, and advances national and internationalisation objectives.
While this approach offers administrative flexibility and adaptability, enabling the regulatory system to evolve without the need for repeated legislative amendments, it also concentrates substantial normative authority in executive hands, prioritising administrative efficiency over legislative certainty and rendering future rule-making the decisive arena of governance.
A defining feature of the VBSA Bill is its reliance on subordinate legislation. While establishing institutional structures and broad functions, it leaves most of the operational details to future rules and regulations. It delegates key policy areas, including accreditation benchmarks, autonomy criteria, degree-awarding norms, compliance procedures, penalty mechanisms, funding-linked incentives, and disclosure requirements. While this approach offers administrative flexibility and adaptability, enabling the regulatory system to evolve without the need for repeated legislative amendments, it also concentrates substantial normative authority in executive hands, prioritising administrative efficiency over legislative certainty and rendering future rule-making the decisive arena of governance.
The VBSA Bill also deviates from the DNEP 2019 by failing to outline overarching time-bound goals and deliverables to effect desirable improvements in the quality of higher education. The DNEP 2019 had suggested accrediting HEIs every five years to promote quality. It is critical that this expectation from the VBSGP is not lost when creating the rules and regulations.
The VBSA applies to almost the entire higher education ecosystem, including Central and State Universities, private and deemed institutions, affiliated colleges, technical and teacher education institutions, and online providers. Clause 2 of the Bill redraws the regulatory boundaries between the proposed VBSA framework and existing professional councils. Sub-clause (3) formally excludes major professional domains such as medicine, law, nursing, pharmacy, and allied health sciences from the direct application of the Act. Sub-clause (2) introduces a sweeping notwithstanding provision that accords primacy to the VBSA in matters of coordination and determination of academic standards in higher educational institutions. The limited carve-out for the Council of Architecture, expressly confined to the regulation of professional practice, further reinforces this distinction between educational governance and professional licensing. In effect, technical education, teacher education, and architecture education are substantially subsumed within the VBSA framework for regulatory, accreditation, and standard-setting purposes.
A closer reading reveals that even for excluded professional programmes, mainly in medicine and law, institutional governance, accreditation, financial oversight, and quality assurance remain subject to VBSA supervision. This continues dual regulation, which NEP sought to reform and rationalise.
A closer reading reveals that even for excluded professional programmes, mainly in medicine and law, institutional governance, accreditation, financial oversight, and quality assurance remain subject to VBSA supervision. This continues dual regulation, which NEP sought to reform and rationalise. Given that excluded Professional Councils have been explicitly listed in the Bill’s Clause 3, it is essential to include the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the National Council for Vocational Education and Training (NCVET), and the Mahatma Gandhi National Council for Rural Education (MGNCRE) under the VBSA’s ambit to ensure clarity. Further, the AICTE and NCTE, in their repurposed roles as standard-setting bodies, should be included under the VBSMP.
The bill is largely silent about vocational education. It only states that the Standards Council must provide “guiding principles for learning outcomes to ease the integration of vocational education into higher education”. It is puzzling that the NCVET, established under the NEP to help regulate and facilitate the integration of vocational education into mainstream higher education, does not appear in the VBSA at all. It should have had a role similar to that of the Council of Architecture.
The NEP 2020 proposed a fourth pillar: a Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC), to integrate regulation with financing and performance incentives. However, the Bill commits a serious omission by failing to create a comparable statutory funding body to disburse development funds to HEIs and scholarships to students. The quality of education cannot be improved without timely access to the requisite funds. It is primarily state universities, which account for the bulk of enrolment, that will be denied funding.
Given the large size of the higher education system, the Central Government’s decision to wash its hands of funding state institutions will severely undermine education quality. It may be worth considering NEP’s recommendation to repurpose the UGC as a funding body under VBSA, thereby leveraging its considerable experience in providing grants to state universities and students.
The VBSA Bill explicitly excludes funding to centrally funded HEIs from VBSA’s purview. These HEIs receive bulk grants, including scholarships to students, from the Ministry of Education. Thus, students at non-centrally funded HEIs will lose out, as they currently receive scholarships directly from the UGC. Given the large size of the higher education system, the Central Government’s decision to wash its hands of funding state institutions will severely undermine education quality. It may be worth considering NEP’s recommendation to repurpose the UGC as a funding body under VBSA, thereby leveraging its considerable experience in providing grants to state universities and students.
The Accreditation Council performs both evaluative and quasi-enforcement functions. It develops quality frameworks and recommends penalties. Internationally, accreditation is primarily developmental, but the VBSA Bill makes it partly disciplinary. The convergence of accreditation with the power to levy penalties may force institutions towards a regime of compliance and procedural conformity that reduces focus on innovation, disruption, and adaptability to change. The danger is that accreditation will move away from quality assurance and improvement, towards risk management.
The Bill’s long-term effectiveness will depend on the independence of regulatory, standards, and accreditation bodies; on creating a fourth vertical for funding; on respect for institutional diversity and federal principles; on balancing control and autonomy; and finally, on the details in the rules and regulations that subordinate legislation will prepare.
The VBSA Bill 2025 represents the most significant attempt to reform India’s higher education governance system since the establishment of the UGC in 1956. It has the potential to modernise regulation, enhance quality, and support institutional transformation.
However, the Bill’s long-term effectiveness will depend on the independence of regulatory, standards, and accreditation bodies; on creating a fourth vertical for funding; on respect for institutional diversity and federal principles; on balancing control and autonomy; and finally, on the details in the rules and regulations that subordinate legislation will prepare. If implemented with restraint and transparency, the Bill can advance the transformative objectives of NEP 2020.
Leena Chandran Wadia co-authored the Draft NEP 2019 and has previously served as a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
Shakila Shamsu was the Secretary to the Dr K. Kasturirangan Committee that drafted the NEP in 2019.
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Leena Chandran Wadia co-authored the Draft NEP 2019 and has previously served as a Senior Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation. ...
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Shakila Shamsu was the Secretary to the Dr K. Kasturirangan Committee that drafted the NEP in 2019. ...
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