Congress opposes VBSA Bill to replace UGC, AICTE, NCTE

The projected authorities to restructure the regulatory model of higher acquisition represents law overreach by the Union government, the Congress said connected Thursday (March 19, 2026). The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA) Bill, 2025, was introduced without consulting States, bureaucratises higher education, and hands implicit grant-giving powers to the Education Ministry that is controlled by politicians, Congress communications main Jairam Ramesh said, successful a connection explaining the party’s absorption to the Bill.

Mr. Ramesh added that a Parliamentary sheet has flagged a precocious fig of vacancies astatine existing regulatory bodies, including the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE). The Bill proposes to subsume these bodies and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) into a azygous 12-member Commission, nether which 3 abstracted Regulatory, Accreditation, and Standards Councils volition operate.

“This concerning quality comes astatine a clip erstwhile determination is already a determination to restructure the architecture of higher acquisition regularisation done the VBSA Bill, 2025,” Mr. Ramesh said.

Encroaching connected State powers

Though the Centre has cited Entry 66 of the Union List successful the Constitution to support its close to present the Bill, the authorities gives the projected caller umbrella Commission “powers beyond this scope and specifically encroaches connected State authorities powers”, helium added.

The Bill seeks to disagreement UGC’s grant-giving powers from the regulatory operation to minimise conflicts of interest, with the authorities saying aboriginal backing mechanisms volition beryllium designed by the Education Ministry. The Congress expressed interest astatine the lack of a abstracted backing assembly wrong the caller architecture, arsenic this entails handing implicit grant-giving powers to the Ministry, which could beryllium taxable to governmental influence.

Earlier this week, however, the Ministry informed the Joint Committee of Parliament examining the Bill that a UGC-like grant-giving powerfulness volition beryllium devised and adopted nether the Shiksha Adhishthan operation itself.

Tighter control

Mr. Ramesh noted that nether the VBSA Bill, Member Secretaries volition bash the “executive running” of the Commission and the 3 Councils nether it; nether the existent system, however, it is academics who tally bodies similar the UGC, AICTE, and NCTE.

The Congress besides warned that bringing institutes of nationalist importance, specified arsenic the IITs, IIMs, and NITs, nether the ambit of the VBSA Bill could endanger their autonomy. The Bill lone speaks of the autonomy of these institutions being protected, without offering immoderate circumstantial details, the connection said.

It besides argued that the projected overhaul of the regulatory operation dilutes UGC’s consultative requirements and expands the caller structure’s powers, signalling a “tighter control” implicit higher acquisition institutions.