The Union Budget 2021 made a 9.5 percent higher allocation (than 2020-21 revised estimate) of Rs 93,224.31 crore allocation towards the education ministry in its Budget estimate (BE) 2021-22. The total allocation stood at Rs 54,873.66 crore for school education and Rs 38,350.65 crore for higher education.
Here, there was a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 16.5 percent for higher education allocation while there was a 5.1 percent YoY increase for the school education segment.
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Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her Budget speech that many cities have various research institutions, universities, and colleges supported by the Indian government. Here, Hyderabad for example, has about 40 such major institutions.
"In nine such cities, we will create formal umbrella structures so that these institutions can have better synergy, while also retaining their internal autonomy. A Glue Grant will be set aside for this purpose," she added.
While it was expected that a separate allocation would be announced for the National Education Policy 2020, the finance minister did not make any such proposal during her Budget speech.
Among the various schemes, the Rashtriya Uchtar Shiksha Abhiyaan (RUSA) got a Rs 3,000 crore allocation in BE 2021-22 as against Rs 166 crore in the revised estimate 2020-21.
RUSA is a centrally-sponsored scheme that aims to improve the quality of institutes, promotes self autonomy and aims to ensure adequate availability of quality faculty in all higher educational institutions. This scheme also promotes diversity including inclusion of SC/ST, minorities and women in the higher education system.