New Delhi: The government on Friday earmarked Rs 93,847.64 crore for the education sector for 2019-20, an increase of over 10 per cent from last budget allocation. While Rs 37,461.01 crore has been allocated for higher education, an amount of Rs 56,386.63 crore has been earmarked for school education.
Last year, then finance minister Arun Jaitley had allocated Rs 85,010 crore for the education sector.
However, there has been a decline in budget outlays for IITs, IIMs, IISER, and statutory and regulatory bodies such as UGC and AICTE in the interim budget for 2019-20 as compared to the allocation for 2018- 19.
This comes at a time the HRD ministry has said it will implement 10 per cent reservation for economically weaker sections of the general category from the 2019 academic session and has directed to increase around 25 per cent seats in higher educational institutions and universities across the country.
Presenting an interim budget, Mr Goyal proposed the launch of a scheme named ‘Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) by 2022’ with a total investment of Rs 1 lakh crore in the next four years to step up investments in research and related infrastructure in premier educational institutions, including health institutions.
The government allocated Rs 608.87 crore for research and innovation, a massive increase from previous allocation of Rs 350.23 crore.
Mr Goyal also proposed the setting up of two new full-fledged 'Schools of Planning and Architecture’ (SPA) to be selected on challenge mode.
