Union Budget 2023: Centre allocates Rs 44,094 crore for higher education

The Education Ministry has been allocated the highest ever Rs 112899.47 crore in the budget. Due to this rise the budgetary allocation for higher education has also gone up at Rs 44,094.62 crore compared to Rs 40,828.35 crore in 2022-23.

One hundred labs for developing apps using 5G services will be set up in HEIs, to realize a new range of opportunities, business models and employment potential. The labs will cover among others, apps like Smart Classrooms, Precision Farming, Intelligent Transport Systems and Healthcare. The government has been attempting to transform engineering education by introducing courses in emerging sectors and making the approach multidisciplinary, not only in IITs, NITs and IISERs but in engineering institutions across the country.

These 100 labs will provide a fillip to employment, start-ups, businesses and promote innovation and entrepreneurship in young engineers. Recognizing the pioneer role of the IITs in research excellence in the country, the Finance Minister announced that a research and development grant for indigenous production of Lab Grown Diamond seeds and machines will be given to one of the IITs for 5 years. This will ensure an industry led research and innovation effort, with direct impact on exports, employment generation and India's share in the world trade in this sector.

According to the Ministry of Education in order to implement the NEP 2020 in the true spirit, the best institutions and universities of the country, under the central government, have been given an additional Rs 4235.74 crore, which is an increase of 12.8 per cent over their allocation last year.

In 2023-24, the grant for the UGC has been increased by 9.37 per cent -- an increase of Rs 459 crore. The grants to Central Universities have been increased by 17.66 percent, deemed universities by 27 per cent, support to IITs has been increased by 14 percent, and to NITs by 10.5 percent as compared to 2022-23. Also IISC, Bangalore's grant has been increased by 15 per cent.

In 2023-24, for the Prime Minister Research Fellowship (PMRF) an amount of Rs 400 crore has been provided as compared to Rs 200 crore in 2022-23 -- that is a 100 per cent increase. The ministry of education said that three Centres of Excellence will be set up in educational institutions to "Make AI in India and Make AI work for India".

AI has an important role to play in Agriculture, Health, Automobiles, Cyber Security, Smart Home, City Infrastructure, Data Analysis, Speech Recognition, Customer Service, Automated Stock Trading, Online Shopping, Machine Translation, Digital Personal Assistance.

Paresh Kumar, CEO, Dev Insights, said that the allocation for the education sector is close to Rs 44,000 crore, which is around 4,000 crore more than the previous year. It will be helpful in implementing the national education policy in higher education. The budgetary recommendations will also promote digitization in the education sector and show a futuristic approach towards teaching and learning to make world class quality education available to all students.

--IANS

gcb/bg