‘HEFA will fast track research, academic infra development’

HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar on Thursday said that the Cabinet decision to approve the proposal for enlarging the scope of Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) by expanding its capital base to Rs 10,000 crore and tasking it to mobilise Rs 1 lakh crore for revitalising infrastructure and systems in education (RISE by 2022) is a very big step to boost the education sector.

Addressing a Press Conference, Javadekar said that HEFA is the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for providing additional finance for promoting research and academic infrastructure in the higher educational institutions.

Giving more details, the Minister said that the increase of allocation for education from Rs 65,867 Crore in 2013-14 to Rs 1,10,000 crore in 2018-19 (67 per cent increase) is without any raise in fee. An amount of Rs 22,000 crore would be mobilised in the current year by HEFA depending on the actual requirement. He further said State-of-the-art labs and research facilities will help in retaining the brightest young minds in India, and will attract Overseas Citizens of India back to Indian universities which will convert brain drain to brain gain.

Minister highlighted that project based funding brings greater discipline in selection and execution of projects. "There will be no burden on the new institutions as the Government will take the entire burden of servicing the loans and there will be no increase in student fees on account of this project," he said.

The objectives of RISE by 2022 are qualitatively upgrade the research and academic infrastructure in India to global best standards by 2022 and make India into an education hub by making available high quality research infrastructure in Indian higher educational institutions. It also allow access of HEFA funding to institutions like Central Universities, AIIMS, IISERs and newly created Institutes of National Importance, without creating any additional burden to the students.

HEFA was set up in May 2017 by the Central Government as a non-profit, Non Banking Financing Company (NBFC) for mobilising extra-budgetary resources for building crucial infrastructure in the higher educational institutions under Central Government.