Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced several measures to strengthen higher education, including adding 10,000 medical seats in one year as part of 75,000 additional seats over the next five years. 

In her budget speech, she noted that there are 23 Indian Institutes of Technology (not counting IIT Zanzibar and IIT Abu Dhabi, run by IIT Madras and IIT Delhi, respectively). She said that the number of students passing through the 23 doubled from 65,000 to 1,35,000 in the past ten years. 

Sitharaman also said that additional infrastructure would be created in “the five IITs started after 2014”, to facilitate “education for 6,500 more students.” It is not clear as to which five, because according to the Council of Indian Institute of Technology, seven came into existence after 2014 – IIT Palakkad and IIT Tirupati came in 2015, and IITs at Dhanbad, IIT Bhilai, IIT Goa, IIT Jammu and IIT Dharwad in 2016. 

Sitharaman also said the hostel and other infrastructure at IIT Patna would be expanded. 

The Budget has increased ‘Grant support to IITs’, allocating Rs 10,659 crore compared with Rs 9,703 crore in the revised estimates for 2024-25 – a rise of 9.8 per cent. 

Centre of Excellence in AI 

The finance minister recalled that in her last budget speech, she had said three Centres of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence would be set up for AI in agriculture, health, and sustainable cities. In today’s budget speech, she announced one more CoE for AI, for education, “with an outlay of Rs 500 crore.” 

The Budget has allocated Rs 200 crore for the CoE—the other ₹300 crore must then come from extra-budgetary sources. In the Budget for 2024-25, ₹255 crore had been provided for the CoEs in AI, but only ₹110 crore were spent, as per the revised estimate for last year. 

PM Research Fellowship 

Sitharaman said 10,000 fellowships would be provided for technological research in IITs and the Indian Institute of Science “with enhanced financial support” over the next five years. 

Under this scheme, the best students who have completed or are in the final year of B. Tech or Integrated M.Tech or M.Sc. in Science and Technology streams from IISc/IITs/NITs/IISERs/IIITs are be offered direct admission in PhD programme in the IITs and IISc. Eligible students are offered a monthly stipend of ₹70,000 for the first two years, ₹75,000 for the 3rd year, ₹80,000 for the 4th and 5th years. Apart from this, a research grant of ₹2 lakh is provided to each of the Fellows for 5 years to cover their foreign travel expenses—for presenting research papers at international conferences and seminars. Up to 3,000 Fellows (1,000 per year) are selected for three years. 

The finance minister noted that the government added about 1.1 lakh UG and PG medical education seats in ten years, an increase of 130 per cent. “In the next year, 10,000 additional seats will be added in medical colleges and hospitals, towards the goal of adding 75,000 seats in the next 5 years,” she said. 

 

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