NEW DELHI: The Delhi government has set aside a sum of `16,396 crore for the education sector in its budget for the 2024-25 financial year, a slight decline from the previous fiscal budget of `16,575 crore. The sector was alloted 21.57% of the total budget expenditure.
During the presentation of the budget in the Assembly, Finance minister Atishi said, “Education has always been our government’s top priority. That’s why, upon coming to power in 2015, we doubled the budget for education and consistently allocated almost one-fourth of the total budget to education for the past 10 years.”
“In the 2014-15 budget, the expenditure on education was only Rs 6,554 crore, and today, in the 2024-25 budget, we are proposing an allocation of Rs 16,396 crore for education,” Atishi added.
As part of the budget estimates for eucation, Rs 100 crore has been allocated to the State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) for teachers’ training programmes while Rs 150 crore have been proposed for the construction of educational infrastructure, such as new schools and related facilities, in the national capital.
The finance minister has also allocated Rs 45 crore for the maintenance of existing infrastructures in the eductional sector. Schools of Specialised Excellence, a flagship initiative of the AAP dispensation and much-tauted poll promise, saw an allocation of Rs 42 crore.
The government also set aside Rs 118 crore for sports education, Rs 1,212 crore for higher and technical education, and Rs 15 crore for “Business Blasters Senior”.
Highlighting her government’s efforts in overhauling the city’s education system, Atishi said that 22,711 new classrooms have been added in the past nine years.
The minister further said that over 20,000 new seats have been made available in state-run universities, taking the total enrollment to 93,880 students. Additionally, the number of seats in technical education has gone up from 12,204 in 2014-15 to 62,000 in 2023-24, the minister said.
With regard to the recruitment of teachers, Atishi said there are 47,914 regular teachers presently in city government schools, up from the 34,182 regular teachers in 2015. In addition, the recruitment process for 7,000 more teachers is currently underway, the minister told the Assembly