Interim Budget 2024: Fund cuts, scholarships; a recap of budget 2023, impact on universities

NEW DELHI: Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present the interim budget 2024 today at 11 am. With just a few months left for the general election 2024, the interim budget 2024 will focus on only the essential expenditure plan for the government, the finance minister had said.

Although the minister said that no major policy change will be announced, several academics, experts, heads of school and universities have been expecting the government to allocate 6% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and make education the top priority of the national budget.

Last year, the budget 2023 focussed on women-centric policies, including Free Skill Development, Beti Bachao Beti Padhao, and Digital Skilling Initiatives. Overall, the education sector was allotted Rs 1,12,899.47 for the 2023-24 financial year, which was an increase of 8.27% compared to the previous year’s Rs 1,04,277.72 crore.

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Recap of Education Budget 2023

Apart from the promising initiatives such as introduction of new age courses, 740 Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS) for 3.5 lakh tribal students, research and development (R&D) grant, there was a massive cut in scholarships for children.

School Education

The budget allocation for 2023 saw an increase of more than Rs 5,000 crores. Of the total budget outlay for school education, Rs 68,804.85 crore.

The biggest scheme, the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, saw slight increase in allocation of Rs 37, 453.47 crore. However, as per an analysis by the think-tank, Centre for Policy Research’s Accountability Initiative, revealed that only 51% of the funds allocated to the scheme was released by December 2022.

The PM Poshan scheme was allocated Rs 11,600 crores, a Rs 600 crore increase compared to 2022. But the Delhi-based think-tank’s analysis showed that the union government had released just 52% of the total funds earmarked for 2022-23 by November 30.

In the previous budget speech, the finance minister announced that the government will develop and upgrade nearly 15,000 schools and allocated Rs 4,000 crore. This month, the Union education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said that renovation in more than 1,000 schools has been completed under the PM-SHRI scheme.

Higher education

Funds for the research schemes were reduced for this year. Even though the funds for central universities was increased to Rs 11,528.90 crore, Rs 276.34 crore of this budget was for repaying infrastructure loans from the Higher Education Finance Agency (HEFA). Take a look at the education budget estimates of 2023-24 for research schemes.

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Among the institutes, Indian Institute of Management (IIM) saw steep cut in the allocation from Rs 653.92 crore in 2022-23 to Rs 300 crore in 2023-24.