New higher education regulator won't have funding powers: Pradhan

Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan (pictured)on Tuesday said that the single regulator proposed under the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhisthan (VBSA) Bill, 2025, will not have funding powers. 

The regulatory body that the Bill seeks to create will subsume the functions of the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE). 

“The National Education Policy (NEP) had recommended to separate functioning of funding from the regulator. This will help the VBSA and its verticals to fully discharge their specific domain functions without any confusion," the Union minister said on Tuesday, a day after the Bill was tabled in Parliament and sent to a joint committee for evaluation. 

 

Ministry sources said that disbursal of grants to centrally funded higher education institutes will be done through mechanisms devised by the ministry. “The feedback of the regulatory council on the institutional performance shall be the major factor to decide the quantum of funds to be distributed,” they added. 

While the Bill does not mention it, the NEP had envisioned a separate body, called the Higher Education Grants Council (HEGC) to handle funding. “It was decided to not to go ahead with a dedicated grants body as education has multiple and separate funnels of funding and it is difficult to bring them under one umbrella,” Pradhan said. 

Lack of clarity on funding of higher education institutes was raised by several experts. 

At present, the Centre disburses grants to the Central Universities through UGC on a quarterly basis which UGC further disburses to the universities on a monthly basis. 

The Centre disburses grants to institutes of national importance like IITs and IIMs, on a monthly basis. The new Bill doesn’t give the regulatory council the power to regulate fees in higher education institutions, however, the council can develop policy to prevent commercialisation of higher education. The Bill empowers the VBSA or the commission, to impose penalties on higher education institutions for violations of the Act, ranging from not less than ₹10 lakh to up to ₹2 crore. The highest penalty is for instances in which an institution is established without the approval of the Centre or the state concerned. 

The proposed legislation forms three autonomous councils — Shiksha Viniyaman Parishad (regulatory council), Gunvatta Parishad (accreditation council) and Manak Parishad (standards council). 

The umbrella body under the VBSA will include the presidents of these three councils, the Union higher education secretary, two eminent and distinguished academicians not below the rank of professor from state higher educational institutions, five eminent experts and a member secretary. 

The commission will have its own fund to be funded by the Centre through grants. 

Currently, the UGC regulates non-technical higher-education institutions in India, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE regulates teacher education. 

The VBSA will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs. 

At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the UGC. 

The joint committee of Parliament will scrutinise the VBSA Bill, and aim to submit its report by the last day of the first half of next year’s budget session, officials in the know told Business Standard. 

On concerns of centralisation through the Bill, Pradhan said that states will have representation within the three new councils.

“The erstwhile UGC, AICTE, NCTE bodies did not have state participation,” he noted. 

The government expects the single regulator to streamline processes, reduce duplication, and create greater consistency in compliance requirements for universities and colleges across the country.