NEW DELHI: The education budget saw a hike of 8.27 percent from Rs 1.12 lakh crore against 1.04 lakh crore in the Union Budget 2023-24.
A whopping Rs 4,000 crore was allotted to PM Shri Schools, which was announced in last year’s budget speech. Under the scheme, there is the provision of more than 14,500 PM SHRI Schools or PM Schools for Rising India by strengthening existing schools from amongst schools managed by the central government and state and local bodies.
More than 20 lakh students are expected to be direct beneficiaries of the scheme.
Lauding the Union Budget, Union Education and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Minister Dharmendra Pradhan tweeted, “Giving a boost to education, skill dev., entrepreneurship, R&D, digital infrastructure, green growth & job creation, #AmritKaalBudget draws a meticulous blueprint for India@100 and lays a solid foundation for transforming India into a technology-driven knowledge-based economy.”
He further said that the highest-ever allocation of ₹1,12,899.47 crore for the education sector was announced in the union budget.
While the allocation for higher education went up by 7.9 percent from Rs 40,828 crore (budget estimate) in 2022-23 to Rs 44,094 crore in 2023-24, the budget for school education and literacy also saw a hike of 8 percent.
School education budget allocation increased from Rs 63,449 crore (BE) in 2022-23 to Rs 68,804 crore in 2023-24.
To build a culture of reading and to make up for pandemic-time learning loss, Union Finance Minister Niramala Sitharaman announced that the National Book Trust, Children’s Book Trust and other sources would be encouraged to provide and replenish non-curricular titles in regional languages and English to these physical libraries.
“Collaboration with NGOs that work in literacy will also be a part of this initiative. To inculcate financial literacy, financial sector regulators and organizations will be encouraged to provide age-appropriate reading material to these libraries.”
She also announced setting up a National Digital Library for Children and Adolescents to facilitate the availability of quality books across geographies, languages, genres and levels and device-agnostic accessibility.
States will be encouraged to set up physical libraries at Panchayat and ward levels, while emphasis was given to teacher training.
She also announced three Centres of Excellence to be set up in educational institutions to "Make AI in India and Make AI work for India.”
The education ministry’s biggest school education scheme, which aims to help in reversing learning loss due to Covid, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, saw a small hike of 0.18 percent, with Rs 37,453 crore allocated to it under the budget as compared to Rs 37,383 crore in 2022-23.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) was allocated Rs 8791 crore this year, compared to Rs 7545 crore.
Recognising the pioneer role of the IITs in research, Sitharaman also announced that a research and development grant for indigenous production of Lab Grown Diamond (LGD) seeds and machines would be given to one of the IITs for five years.
This will ensure an industry-led research and innovation effort directly impacting exports, employment generation and India’s share in world trade in this sector.
The government’s flagship scheme of PM Poshan also saw an increase by Rs. 1366.25 crores (13.35 percent) from Rs. 10233.75 crores in budget estimate (BE) 2022-23 to Rs. 11600.00 crore (BE) 2023-24.
To implement the National Education Policy 2020 in true spirit, the best institutions and universities in the country have been given an additional Rs 4235.74 crores, which is an increase of 12.8 percent over their allocation last year.
The ministry said in budget estimates 2023-24 the grant for the University Grants Commission (UGC) has been increased by 9.37 percent, which is an increase of Rs 459 crores. Also, the grant for Central Universities increased by 17.66 percent, and Deemed Universities by 27 percent. Also, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore’s grant has been increased by 15 percent.