JPC on Viksit Bharat bill to meet on Sept 11

New Delhi: A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) will resume discussions on the controversial Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhisthan (VBSA) Bill, 2025, after a gap of more than a month, with the panel set to hear views of experts from Himachal Pradesh on September 11

Published on: Sep 3, 2026, 08:26:20 IST

By Saubhadra Chatterji, Sanjay Maurya

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New Delhi: A Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) will resume discussions on the controversial Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhisthan (VBSA) Bill, 2025, after a gap of more than a month, with the panel set to hear views of experts from Himachal Pradesh on September 11.

The move comes after the committee’s draft report on the legislation was not adopted during the monsoon session as lawmakers across party lines sought further discussions on the Bill.

The 31-member panel, headed by BJP lawmaker and former Union minister D Purandeswari, has scheduled two meetings on September 11. According to the Lok Sabha portal, it will hear the views of the secretary, higher education, Himachal Pradesh government; the vice-chancellors of Central University of Himachal Pradesh and Sardar Patel University, Mandi; the director of Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Sirmaur and the vice-chancellor of Himachal Pradesh Technical University.

The committee last met on August 3 for “internal deliberations”. It had planned to adopt the draft report on July 7 and 8, but the report could not be tabled during the monsoon session.

The panel has so far held 24 meetings, including three on July 7 and 8, for clause-by-clause consideration of the Bill.

The VBSA Bill, introduced in Parliament in December 2025, seeks to replace the UGC, AICTE and NCTE with a 12-member commission overseeing separate councils for regulation, standards and accreditation under the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 framework. Following objections from several MPs, the Bill was referred to the parliamentary committee on December 16.

The government’s decision to slow down the legislation was hailed by Opposition parties as a success. At a press conference after the monsoon session ended on August 13, Congress general secretary for communications Jairam Ramesh had said “stalling the Bill was one of the Opposition’s five achievements.”

Earlier in May, HT reported that leading higher education institutions had urged the panel to strengthen safeguards for institutional autonomy, increase state representation and adopt a phased rollout, warning that some provisions could effectively subordinate the regulator to the executive and trigger Centre-State friction.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Saubhadra Chatterji
Saubhadra Chatterji is Deputy Political Editor at the Hindustan Times. He writes on both politics and policies.Read More
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanjay Maurya
Sanjay Maurya is a Principal Correspondent with Hindustan Times, where he covers education, with a focus on school and higher education, competitive examinations, education policy and governance. Working as part of the National Bureau, he is based in New Delhi and reports on the Ministry of Education and covers various statutory bodies like UGC, AICTE and NCTE and autonomous bodies like CBSE and NCERT. His reporting also tracks the implementation of key government reforms and policies from school education to higher education including in IITs, NITs, IIMs, central and state universities, and their impact on students and educational institutions. His reporting on the irregularities and rushed implementation of CBSE's On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for evaluation of Class 12 board exams 2026, triggered administrative action, leading to the transfer of the board's two senior-most officials and the constitution of a committee to probe alleged irregularities in procurement process of the system. He joined Hindustan Times in December 2024. Prior to that, he had a three-year stint at Careers360, where he reported on school and higher education, entrance examinations, admissions, rankings and various education policies involving universities and professional education bodies. Over the years, Maurya has reported extensively on major developments in India's education sector, including the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, reforms in the National Testing Agency (NTA) following the NEET-UG 2024 controversy, changes in school education, higher education regulation, and the evolution of entrance examinations such as NEET, JEE and CUET. He regularly produces data-driven and explanatory stories based on government documents, parliamentary proceedings, court records and official data. His focus remains on helping readers understand how education policies and institutional decisions affect millions of students, teachers and educational institutions across the country.Read More

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