Union Budget 2024: Loan support for higher education, UGC sees big cut

With the Budget emphasising on employment and skilling, Sitharaman announced that a provision of Rs 1.48 lakh crore has been made in the Budget for education, employment, and skilling.

In collaboration with state governments and industry, Sitharaman announced a new centrally sponsored scheme for skilling which will benefit 20 lakh youth over a period of five years. For this purpose, 1,000 Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs) will be upgraded in “hub and spoke arrangements with outcome orientation”. The course content and design will be aligned to the skill needs of industry, and new courses will be introduced for emerging needs, she said.

As announced in the provisions of the interim budget in February, allocations for certain school education related schemes have gone up. This includes the PM-POSHAN scheme, the school meal programme, for which allocation has increased by Rs 867 crore. In this year’s Union Budget, a provision of Rs 12,467 crore for PM-POSHAN has been made compared to Rs 11,600 in 2023-24.

The PM-SHRI scheme, which aims to set up “exemplar schools” that showcase aspects of the National Education Policy 2020, has also seen an increase in allocation by around Rs 2,050 crore. In the Union Budget this year, Rs 6,050 crore for the PM-SHRI scheme has been allocated up from Rs 4,000 crore in 2023-24.

Allocation for the Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS) project is also up by Rs 450 crore, from Rs 800 crore last year to Rs 1,250 crore in this year’s Budget. The STARS project supports the states in developing and implementing interventions that can “improve education outcomes.”

Altogether, school education has seen an increase of Rs 4,203 crore in Budget allocation. Last year, it was Rs 68,804 crore as against this year’s Rs 73,007 crore.

In higher education, allocation for the University Grants Commission (UGC), as was indicated in the interim budget, has been slashed by Rs 2,860 crore in the Budget. Compared to an allocation of Rs 5,360 crore in the 2023-24 Budget, the UGC was allocated Rs 2,500 this year. Similarly, for IIMs there has been a decline in allocation fromRs 300 crore last year to Rs 212.21 crore this year.

On the allocation for UGC, the commission’s Chairperson M Jagadesh Kumar said that the Budget for the UGC comprises three pivotal components – UGC, central universities, and deemed universities. “Starting from the financial year 2024-25, funding for specific colleges affiliated with central universities is realigned from the UGC budget line to the central universities budget line. This realignment comes with enhanced funding under the central universities budget line… and reduction under the UGC budget line,” he said.

In a fillip for central universities, there has been an increase in Budget allocation by Rs 4,400 crore – from Rs 11,258 crore last year to Rs 5,928 crore this year.

The IITs have also seen an increase of Rs 663 crore in allocation – from Rs 9,661 crore last year to Rs 10,324 crore in this year’s Budget.  The research and innovation section, which includes schemes like the Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration, has also seen a hike in allocation by around Rs 144 crore – from Rs 210.61 crore in 2023-24 to Rs 355 crore this year.