Joint parliamentary panel gets time till Monsoon Session to submit report on Bill to replace UGC

The Joint Committee of Parliament, constituted to examine the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, which aims to subsume multiple higher education regulators into a single “umbrella” Commission in an NEP 2020-driven overhaul, is now expected to submit its report by the end of the Monsoon Session this year.

The 31-member Committee was constituted this week by the Speaker after the Government introduced the legislation last December, immediately moving that the Bill be sent to a joint committee of Parliament. The Bill was introduced to objections from Opposition MPs, who argued that it represented “executive overreach”, subjected higher education institutes to “pervasive executive control, graded autonomy, intrusive compliance requirements, severe penalties, and closure powers”, and went against the principles of federalism.

Soon after moving that the Bill be examined by a Joint Committee, officials had said the government was expecting the report of the panel by the end of the 2026 Budget Session.

On Thursday (February 12, 2026), however, the head of the joint committee, D. Purandeswari (BJP), moved a motion seeking an extension in the time to submit its report, which was passed in Lok Sabha. Ms. Purandeswari sought time till the first day of the last week of the Monsoon Session for the committee to submit its report.

This came two days after the Committee Branch of the Lok Sabha notified the names of the 31-member joint committee, with the Speaker appointing Ms. Purandeswari as the panel’s Chairperson. One member of the Committee said that the Secretariat for the panel is yet to be formed and that the work will begin once that is done.

The Committee has 20 members from Lok Sabha and 10 members from Rajya Sabha, with the Bharatiya Janata Party having the largest representation in it (12 members). Those part of the Committee include BJP MPs Sambit Patra, Tejasvi Surya, Anurag Singh Thakur, and Bansuri Swaraj, Congress members A. Bimol Akoijam, Varsha Gaikwad, and Education Standing Committee Chair Digvijaya Singh.

In addition, BJP ally Janata Dal (United) and Opposition parties, the Samajwadi Party and All India Trinamool Congress, have two members each in the committee, apart from which there is representation of Telugu Desam Party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, Indian Union Muslim League, Biju Janta Dal, both factions of Shiv Sena, and the Sikkim Krantikari Morcha. One of the Committee members, Meenakshi Jain, is a nominated Member of Rajya Sabha.

The government introduced the legislation in December last year, providing for the establishment of a 12-member VBSA umbrella commission as a regulatory body, under which the regulatory, accreditation, and standards councils will function. This regulatory structure will subsume the functions of the University Grants Commission, the All India Council for Technical Education, and the National Council for Teacher Education.

The Bill notably divorces the UGC’s grants-disbursal power from the regulatory body that is being proposed, handing this funding power over to “mechanisms devised by the Ministry of Education”.