Delhi Budget 2024: Education sector gets Rs 16,396 crore; Rs 1,000 a month scheme for women

NEW DELHI: Delhi finance minister Atishi presented the budget with a total outlay of Rs 76,000 crore for the financial year 2024-25 in the state assembly today. In the 10th budget of the chief minister Arvind Kejriwal-led government, the finance minister proposed an allocation of Rs 16,396 crore for the education sector.

During her maiden Delhi budget 2024 speech, Atishi proposed the 'Mukhyamantri Mahila Samman Yojana' under which Rs 1,000 will be given monthly to all women aged above 18 from the fiscal year 2024-25.

The Delhi government doubled the education budget in 2015 and spent one-fourth of the expenditure on the education sector for the past 10 years. Last year, Rs 16,575 crore was allocated to the education sector.

On the impact of reforms introduced by the Kejriwal government, the minister said that the 2,121 students studying in the government schools have cleared the national-level National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), Joint Entrance Examination Main (JEE Main) last year.

Delhi schools, teacher training

Nine years ago, there were only 24,000 rooms available for the education of children. However, now the Delhi government has built 22,711 new classrooms. Moreover, the government has sent more than 400 principals to Cambridge and approximately 950 teachers to the National Institute of Education in Singapore for training. Around 1,700 principals have been sent to IIM Ahmedabad for training, Atishi informed.

Under the Schools of Specialized Excellence, 38 school campuses have been established across Delhi in 56 domains, including STEM, humanities, performing and visual arts. The minister said that the SoSE received 1,40,000 applications for 6,000 available seats and claimed that the number of applications received is “perhaps even better than IITs".

“Not a single penny is going to be received as share in central taxes in this budget of Rs 76,000 crore...Till now it was that the child of a rich family would be rich and the child of a poor family would be poor but this was completely contrary to the concept of 'Ram Rajya'. Kejriwal government has changed it,” she said.

Also read Why special education in India needs ‘top-to-bottom’ reform

The success story of Delhi Govt school students

She recalled how the Delhi government schools were in a dilapidated state before the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) came to power. “As soon as one entered the school premises, they had to first bear the stench from the toilets. There was no drinking water facility, windows were broken, lights were not functional, there were no desks in the classrooms, no blackboards, and no teachers. The dilapidated, dark classrooms with crumbling walls gave the impression that the education of the children had been lost somewhere in the darkness. Anyone sending their child to a Government school would do so with a heavy heart, wishing they had a little more money to afford private education for their children,” she said during her budget speech.

Atishi shared the story of Shimpi who studied at a Delhi Government School in Rohini, Sector 23. Shimpi, the daughter of a small factory worker, used to tutor children in her neighbourhood. She qualified the IIT-JEE exam and now is pursuing chemical engineering at IIT Guwahati. “This means that the daughter of a factory worker now has the potential to become a Managing Director of a factory in the future,” the finance minister said.

Also read Kerala’s school weather stations make geography lessons fun, help track local weather

Another student Himanshu, who studied at the Nand Nagri school in Delhi, also faced very difficult circumstances. When he was in Class 11, his father passed away. To support his family, he used to work after school. “Due to the good education level in the Delhi Government school, Himanshu cleared the NEET exam and today, he is pursuing MBBS course from Maulana Azad Medical College in Delhi,” she added.

Out of the first batch of 76 students from Armed Forces Preparatory School, 32 have passed the written examination of the National Defence Academy (NDA) conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).