Education Ministry budget allocation rise by 13%

The rise of 13 per cent in the budgetary allocation for the union ministry of education, with an allocation of ₹1,12,899.47 crore this fiscal, came as the finance minister announced a digital library for all age groups and stressed on building “a culture of learning”.

This fiscal’s allocation, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said in a release, is the highest allocation ever to the ministry; last year the allocation was ₹1.04 lakh crore. The Department of School Education’s allocation of ₹68,804.85 crore is a hike of 7.7 per cent from an allocation of ₹63,449 crore last fiscal, and an increase of 16.51 per cent from revised estimates. The Department of Higher Education gets ₹44,094.62 crore, which is an increase of a marginal 7.4 per cent from the previous allocation of ₹40,828 crore. 

Also Read: Budget lays foundation for transforming India into technology-driven, knowledge-based economy: Dharmendra Pradhan

In her speech, the Finance Minister said that a National Digital Library for children and adolescents will be set-up where “quality books across geographies, languages, genres and levels, and device agnostic accessibility” will be available. “States will be encouraged to set up physical libraries for them at panchayat and ward levels and provide infrastructure for accessing the National Digital Library resources,” Sitharaman said.

Under the department of higher education, grants to central universities rose by 17.66 per cent, to deemed universities by 27 per cent, and support to IITs rose by 14 per cent and to NITs by 10.5 per cent in comparison to 2022-23 figures. The grant to the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science in poll-bound Karnataka has been increased by 15 per cent. 

The increase in allocation in higher education, University Grants Commission chairperson Mamidala Jagadesh Kumar said, was to overcome the learning losses of the Covid-19 pandemic. “The increased fund allocation will inject more digital technology into higher education for more access and equity and will accelerate the implementation of NEP 2020, bringing further dividends to the students to make them employable and strengthen our efforts in making India a knowledge-based economy,” Kumar said. 

Under the department of school education, the allocation for PM Schools for Rising India PM SHRI Schools was significant, as it saw an increase of 122.22 per cent in allocation from ₹1,800 cr in budgetary estimates in 2022-23 to ₹4,000 crore 2023-24. Under the scheme the government plans to set up 14,500 PM Shri schools by strengthening existing government schools till 2026-27, benefiting over 20 lakh students. 

In addition to that, the Samagra Shiksha scheme saw a marginal hike of 0.18 per cent, with an increase allocation from ₹37,383 crore in 2022-23 to ₹37,453 crore in 2023-24. Allocation for PM Poshan rose by 13.3 per cent increasing from ₹11,600 crore last fiscal to ₹10,233 crore this year.