Is the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill dissolving federalism in education?

Few pieces of legislation put forth brimming ambition on the table and evoke deep constitutional unease. Such is the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025. It has been introduced in the Lok Sabha amid vocal opposition resistance, the bill seeks nothing less than a full-scale demolition and reconstruction of India’s higher education regulatory architecture. By repealing the University Grants Commission Act, 1956, the All India Council for Technical Education Act, 1987, and the National Council for Teacher Education Act, 1993, the government is proposing a singular, centralised command structure in the name of efficiency, coherence, and reform.

On paper, the bill aligns itself firmly with the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020, a document that promised transformation, autonomy, and innovation. In practice, however, the legislation raises a more uncomfortable question: Does this reform strengthen India’s higher education system, or does it hollow out the federal compact that underpins it?

The new architecture: One apex, three councils, absolute authority

At the heart of the bill lies the creation of an umbrella regulator, the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan, tasked with providing direction for the “comprehensive and holistic growth” of higher education. Beneath it will operate three distinct bodies: A regulatory council, an accreditation council, and a standards council.

The design appears streamlined, even elegant. Years of complaints about overlapping mandates, duplicative inspections, and bureaucratic gridlock have given policymakers a compelling case for simplification. The bill’s Statement of Objects and Reasons explicitly cites overregulation and duplication as systemic failures requiring urgent correction.

Yet the devil, as always, is in the detail.

Appointments, accountability, and the concentration of power

Every significant authority under the proposed framework, the chairperson of the apex body, its 12 members, and the presidents and members of all three councils, will be appointed by the President of India, based on recommendations from Union government-led search-cum-selection committees.

Formally, this adheres to the constitutional process. Substantively, it places the entire higher education regulatory ecosystem firmly within the Union government’s sphere of influence. There is no institutionalised role for state governments in appointments, despite education being a subject that has long occupied a delicate space between the Union and the states.

This centralisation becomes starker under Clauses 45 and 47, which grant the Union government overriding policy authority. Any disagreement over whether a matter constitutes “policy” will be resolved unilaterally by the Centre, its decision final and binding. The government may also direct the bodies to perform “such other functions as it deems fit,” an open-ended clause that leaves little room for autonomous regulatory judgment.

The power to supersede: Regulation by remote control

Perhaps the most contentious provision is the Union government’s power to supersede the commission or councils. If the Centre forms the opinion that a body has defaulted in its functions or failed to comply with its directions, it may dissolve that body, force its members to vacate office, and assume full control until reconstitution.

This is not merely administrative oversight, it is executive dominance. Regulatory independence, a cornerstone of credible academic governance, is rendered fragile when the regulator exists at the pleasure of the government it is meant to advise, audit, or occasionally resist.

Funding flows and fiscal dependence

Financial autonomy, too, appears limited. The proposed Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Fund will be financed primarily through Union government grants, along with receipts and deposits from states or other authorities. While pooled funding can enhance coordination, it also deepens fiscal dependence on the Centre, further narrowing the operational space for dissent or decentralised decision-making.

Federalism at stake: A structural, not symbolic, concern

Opposition parties have framed their objections around two axes: Overcentralisation and federal erosion. These concerns are not rhetorical flourishes. Higher education institutions, particularly state universities, operate within diverse linguistic, social, and economic contexts. Regulatory uniformity imposed from New Delhi risks flattening this diversity in pursuit of a one-size-fits-all model.

The criticism of the bill’s Hindi nomenclature may seem cosmetic to some, but it feeds into a broader anxiety: Whose vision of “Viksit Bharat” is being institutionalised, and at whose expense? In a federal polity, symbolism and structure often travel together.

‘Light but tight,’ or tight and heavy?

The government insists that the bill reflects the NEP’s promise of a “light but tight” regulatory framework, minimal interference combined with strict accountability. Yet the expansive discretionary powers vested in the Union government complicate this claim. Autonomy without institutional safeguards quickly becomes conditional autonomy, granted and withdrawn at the Centre’s discretion.

Efficiency, undeniably, is a legitimate policy goal. India’s higher education system has long suffered from regulatory congestion. But efficiency achieved through excessive central control carries its own democratic cost.

Reform or rupture?

The decision to send the bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee is both prudent and revealing. It acknowledges, implicitly, that the legislation’s implications extend beyond technical reform into constitutional terrain. The committee’s deliberations will determine whether this bill evolves into a balanced reform, or hardens into a blueprint for centralised command.

The question, ultimately, is not whether India’s higher education system needs reform, it does. The real question is whether reform must come at the expense of federalism, pluralism, and institutional autonomy.

If the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill redraws the lines of educational governance too sharply, it risks converting cooperative federalism into administrative compliance. And that would be a transformation far more consequential than any regulatory overhaul.Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!