HECI Bill 2025 to be introduced in Parliament winter session to replace UGC, AICTE, NCTE

The Higher Education Commission of India Bill, 2025, which proposes to replace the existing higher education regulators – UGC, AICTE, and NCTE – with a single unified body, is expected to be introduced in the winter session of Parliament scheduled from December 1 to 19.

The HECI Bill is among the ten Bills listed for introduction, consideration, and passing during the Parliament’s winter session. It aims to constitute the HECI as a single regulatory body overseeing standards of higher education, research, scientific and technical institutions across India.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, the ministry of education in July said, the HECI structure will have four functions — regulation, accreditation, funding and academic standard setting – in line with the National Education Policy (NEP 2020). The ministry also said it is in the process of drafting the Bill to establish the commission.

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The proposed commission will subsume existing regulatory bodies such as University Grants Commission, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE).

While UGC oversees non-technical higher education, AICTE oversees technical education, and NCTE has been set for teacher education.

What is the HECI Bill?

The new commission was first proposed in a draft Higher Education Commission of India (Repeal of University Grants Commission Act) Bill in 2018. The proposal got a push in 2021 when Dharmendra Pradhan took over as the Union education minister, and reviewed the roadmap for introducing the HECI Bill and aligning it with the NEP.

The ministry has been working on the HECI framework for several years now. According to former AICTE member secretary Rajive Kumar, there are three committees that have been constituted to shape the proposed regulator.

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“I have been entrusted with some responsibility for the formation of HECI,” he said, adding that Radhakrishnan heads another committee, which is tasked with synchronising the data of all three bodies – UGC, AICTE, and NCTE . The third committee is on integrating the professional bodies, he added.

Nearly seven years after proposing a unified regulatory body for higher education and with its listing in the upcoming winter session, the Bill may be formally introduced for further reforms and approval.