The Education Department was allocated increased funds in the budget this year, but most of the enhanced funds would only meet the enhanced salaries and other related expenditure rather than development.
In the budget presented on Thursday, School Education received ₹ 10,830.30 crore and Higher Education got ₹ 2,025.54 crore; Technical Education got ₹ 422 crore while ₹ 2,823 crore were earmarked for residential schools.
Universities received decreased funds for development, research and infrastructure as the funds reduced from ₹ 420 crore last year to ₹ 210 crore this year. Though Technical Education saw an increase from ₹ 160 crore to ₹ 184.50 crore no funds have been allocated for development though the request was for around ₹ 334 crore. School Education budget increased to ₹ 13,278 crore from ₹ 12,705 crore.
Huge allocations to residential educational institutions, that have been prime focus, indicate the Government’s priority. The Government is spending around ₹ 1 lakh per annum for each candidate in the residential schools. The Minister revealed that 104 residential schools for SCs, 53 for STs, 192 for minorities and 142 for BCs have been established after the new State was formed.
About 2.70 lakh students study in these schools while 16,000 odd students are in women’s residential degree colleges. Poor students from upper castes are also admitted in these schools as some seats are earmarked for them.
