Union Budget 2023: Increase in Higher Education Budget, Rs 1.2 Lakh Crore Allocation to Edu Ministry

In the Union Budget 2023 presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the centre’s allocation for the education sector for the next financial year is Rs 1,12,898.97 crore, which is the highest allocation granted to the Ministry of Education ever. This year, the school education department has been allocated Rs 68,804.85 crore, while the higher education department has been allocated Rs 44,094.62 crore.

In the Union Budget 2022, Sithraman allocated a total of Rs 1,04,278 crore to the education sector. This is a rise of Rs 11,054 crore from the previous year. The education budget allocation was Rs. 93,223 crores in 2021. In 2022-23, the revised estimates of the higher education department were Rs 40828.35 crore, while for the school education department, it was Rs 59052.78 crore.

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Meanwhile, for this year, the centre has allocated Rs 37,453.47 crore for Samagra Shiksha, and Rs 11,600 crore for PM POSHAN. As many as 157 new nursing colleges will be set up in colocation with the existing 157 medical colleges established since 2014, Sitharaman added.

A total of 100 labs will be set up across engineering colleges to develop applications using 5G services. This will be set up with various authorities, regulators, banks, and other businesses. The labs will cover smart classrooms, precision farming, intelligent transport systems, as well as healthcare applications, the minister stated. Lab-grown diamond production to be encouraged via a grant to an IIT, she said. In her speech, Sitharaman also announced three Centres of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence to be set up in top educational institutions.

Furthe, a National Digital Library will be set up for children and adolescents for facilitating the availability of quality books across geographies, languages, genres, and levels, and device-agnostic accessibility, the finance minister added.

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, she said. National Book Trust and Children’s Book Trust will provide books in local languages as well as in English to the physical libraries, the minister added.

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