Budget 2018: 24 new medical colleges proposed

New Delhi: Union finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday announced the Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (Rise) with a total investment of Rs 1,00,000 crore in next four years to step up investments in research and related infrastructure in premier educational institutions. He also announced fellowships for 1,000 top B.Tech students for pursuing a doctorate.

He made an outlay of Rs 85,010 crore for the education Budget for the next fiscal. While Rs 35,010 crore have been allocated for higher education, an amount of Rs 50,000 crore has been earmarked for school education.

“We have managed to get children to school, but quality of education is still a concern. Education will be treated holistically without segmentation from Nursery to Class 12,” Mr Jaitley said in his Budget speech.

The finance minister announced that the government will launch “Revit-alising Infrastructure and Systems in Education” by 2022. “By 2022, every block with more than 50 per cent ST population and at least 20,000 tribal people will have ‘Ekalavya’ school at par with Navodaya Vidayalas,” Mr Jaitley said.

Mr Jaitley proposed setting up of two new full-fledged schools of planning and architecture and also 18 schools of planning and architecture to be set up under the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs) as autonomous schools.

A “Prime Minister Fellowship Scheme” was also announced for top 1,000 B.Tech students in the country to provide opportunity to the students to pursue a Ph.D. in IITs and Indian Institute of Science (IISc). “The students will also be rewarded with a handsome fellowship amount,” Mr Jaitley said.

To bridge the gap between doctor-patient ratio in the country, the finance minister proposed setting up of 24 new government medical colleges by upgrading existing district hospitals in the country.

“The government aims to set up at least one medical college for three Parliamentary constituencies,” he said.

In a major reform move for the higher education sector, the government has also announced a new model for funding infrastructure in the Centrally-funded higher educational institutions, calling on IITs, NITs and IIMs to pitch in with 25 per cent of total funds needed.