‘Visionary and futuristic’: Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan lauds Union Budget 2025

New Delhi, Feb 1 (IANS) Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Saturday lauded the Union Budget 2025-26, emphasising it as a Budget that takes everyone together and prioritises the welfare, well-being, and empowerment of all citizens while firmly placing India on the path to achieving the goal of developed India by 2047.

The Union Minister expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for a “visionary and futuristic Budget”.

He said that this Budget aims to cater to the comprehensive requirements, right from childhood to youth, who would be leading from the front in realising the Viksit Bharat agenda in 2047 and beyond.

He also added that the Budget announcements encompass today’s entire youth demographic, who will lead the nation for the next 25 years. This will strengthen the “Bhartiya Gyan Parampara” within our education system and foster a global community, he added.

The Minister highlighted that the Budget 2025-26 emphasises investing in people and facilitating the all-round development of India’s human capital.

He noted that with “Gareeb, Yuva, Annadata, and Naari” as the pillars, this Budget would uplift sentiments of the poor and middle class, accelerate spending, catalyse investments, and spur growth.

He emphasised that it would remove regional imbalances, build rural prosperity, nurture research, innovation and entrepreneurship, invigorate the education and skilling landscape, and lead to employment-led development.

The Minister expressed gratitude for continuing with bigger and bolder investments in education, skilling, research, and innovation, stating that this budget represents another big leap towards empowering India’s population with more opportunities for world-class education and building capacities of human capital.

The Minister said that the total Budget allocation for the Ministry of Education has reached Rs 128,650 crore, marking a 6.22 per cent increase over the budgetary estimate for 2024-25.

He added that 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATL) will be set up in government schools in the next five years to cultivate the spirit of curiosity and innovation and foster a scientific temper among young minds.

With this, students of all government secondary schools will have access to ATL. The Union Budget also proposes to provide Broadband connectivity to all government secondary schools and primary health centres in rural areas under the BharatNet project, he added.

Union Minister Pradhan said that the total number of students in 23 IITs has increased 100 per cent from 65,000 to 1.35 lakh in the past 10 years.

Additional infrastructure will be created in the five IITs started after 2014 to facilitate education for 6,500 more students. Hostel and other infrastructure capacity at IIT, Patna will also be expanded, he added.

Union Minister Pradhan said that to help students understand their subjects better, it is proposed to implement a Bharatiya Bhasha Pustak Scheme to provide digital-form Indian language books for school and higher education.

He also said that five National Centres of Excellence for Skilling will be set up with global expertise and partnerships to equip youth with the skills required for “Make for India, Make for the World” manufacturing. The partnerships will cover curriculum design, training of trainers, a skills certification framework, and periodic reviews.

Union Minister Pradhan highlighted that the fourth AI Centre of Excellence in Education envisioned in the Budget 2025-26, aims to revolutionise India’s educational system from pre-primary to professional and research levels.

By harnessing artificial intelligence, it seeks to address disparities and inefficiencies, ensuring equitable and high-quality education across the nation. This Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence for Education will be established with a total outlay of Rs 500 crore, he added.

The Minister said that the allocation of Rs 20,000 crore to implement private sector-driven Research, Development and Innovation.

In the next five years, under the PM Research Fellowship scheme, the provision of 10,000 fellowships for technological research in IITs and IISc with enhanced financial support is also proposed in the Budget, he added.

The Minister said that a Gyan Bharatam Mission for the survey, documentation and conservation of our manuscript heritage with academic institutions, museums, libraries and private collectors will be undertaken to cover more than one crore manuscripts.

A National Digital Repository of Indian knowledge systems for knowledge sharing will also be set up, he added.

The Budget Allocation for FY 2025-26 of Rs 78,572 crore is the highest ever for the Department of School Education and Literacy.

There has been an overall increase of Rs 5,074 crore (7 per cent) in the Budget allocation of the Department of School Education and Literacy in the FY 2025-26 from Budgetary Estimate 2024-25. As compared to the Revised Estimates (RE) of FY 2024-25, there has been an increase of Rs 11,000 crore (16.28 per cent).

–IANS

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