NEW DELHI: The new funding model for higher education which will involve raising capital from market as loan and will be repaid over years, will see faster infrastructure development of institutes including new AIIMS across the country, Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar stressed on Thursday.
The minister was addressing media a day after the Union cabinet gave nod to the Higher Education Funding Agency to expand its capital base to Rs 1 lakh crore in next four years.
"It will mean that infrastructure development in institutes of higher education will be fast-tracked and what was earlier achieved in 10 years will now be completed in 2-3 years," Javadekar said.
He also emphasised that there has been an increase of allocation for education from Rs 65,867 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,0,000 crore in 2018-19-marking a rise of 67 per cent-without any raise in fee.
"An amount of Rs 22,000 crore would be mobilised in the current year by HEFA depending on the actual requirement," the minister also said. HEFA was set up last year by the Centre as a non-profit, non-banking financial company for extra budgetary resources for building crucial infrastructure in the higher educational institutions, apart from Navodaya and Kendriya Vidyalayas.
In the existing arrangement, the entire principle portio is repaid by the institution over ten years and the interest portion is serviced by the government by providing additional grants to the institution. So far, funding proposals worth Rs 2,016 crore have been approved by the HEFA.
The scheme will allow access of HEFA funding to institutions like central universities, AIIMS, Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research and newly created institutes of national importance without creating any additional burden to the students, the government is claiming.
It involves bringing together accountability and speed in execution of infrastructure projects and avoid all cost or time over-runs, moving from block-grant mode to project mode for all infrastructure projects, officials said.