IITs, IIMs push back against VBSA norms

Institutes of National Importance (INIs), including IITs and IIMs, have pushed back against the Centre’s Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, asking to be exempted from many provisions of the Bill that intends to overhaul India’s higher education regulatory framework.

These institutes, along with Central Universities, have cited the need to protect institutional autonomy, flagging contradictions in the Bill and criticising aspects such as the provisions for centralisation. The Bill is under review by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) headed by BJP MP D. Purandeswari.

Submissions to the JPC show that the NDA-ruled States of Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya, and Madhya Pradesh have objected to the centralising provisions, as reported by The Hindu on Friday (July 10, 2026).

The Bill proposes a structural overhaul of higher education in the country by repealing the statutory Acts governing the University Grants Commission, the All India Council for Technical Education, and the National Council for Teacher Education and replacing them with a single apex body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan (VBSA), with regulatory, accreditation, and standards councils under it.

IITs, IIMs, along with institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Information Technology and IISERs, called for the Bill to explicitly include language exempting these institutes from the scope of the new regulatory structure.

While IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad, IIM Sambalpur, and IISER Mohali sought total exemption, IIT Madras said the IITs should be excluded from certain clauses on regulatory approvals for online programmes, opening new colleges, and the applicability of the Bill’s penalty provisions.

Several other IITs, IIMs, and IISERs have expressed the need to ensure complete institutional autonomy for research, curriculum, and academic activities.

The government has defended the Bill by citing Clause 49, which promises to protect the autonomy of INIs and Institutes of Eminence. However, IIT Dhanbad, IISER Kolkata, and the University of Hyderabad have pointed out that there are other provisions in the Bill which imply that the new Bill will take precedence over the laws under which IITs, IIMs, and IISERs were set up. IIT Bombay has questioned the logic of leaving law and medicine out of the Bill’s scope.

Several institutes have criticised the proposed penalty structure. The Bill introduces a graded penalty system that could go up to ₹75 lakh in fines and/or closure of the institution. While IIT Madras submitted that IITs should be left out of the clause, the University of Hyderabad suggested that penalties of a particular amount and above should be imposed only after the decision of an “independent adjudicator”.

The Central Tribal University (CTU) of Andhra Pradesh, however, cautioned that the penalty clause could have “differential and unintended” consequences for small and rural institutions serving tribal or underserved areas. It said these institutes may fall short on indicators such as availability of faculty but “not due to institutional negligence, but because of structural and regional constraints”.

CTU argued that “unscrupulous private entities” could abuse the framework and even when the councils recommend closure, “prolonged judicial process” might still allow institutions to function. It has argued against “exclusive” reliance on an outcome-based approach for assessment, accreditation, and regulation, saying this may affect “new and emerging institutions” because of the structural and contextual challenges they may face “despite sincere efforts”. 

IIT Madras criticised the structure of the new regulatory framework. It said the idea of the envisioned single, unified, and institutional accreditation body may not be adequate to deal with the performance of different types of higher educational institutions in the country. It said such a structure may compel INIs like itself towards “parameters that are misaligned with research-intensive global benchmarks”.