Sikho India!

 Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman recently presented the Budget for the financial year 2025-26 in Parliament. In this budget, some important provisions have been made for the education sector  which will benefit the education sector and students. Moreover, these provisions will also directly and indirectly benefit the economy of our country. A review of some such provisions is as follows.

 

1) Artificial Intelligence

 

A provision of Rs. 500 crore has been made in this budget to start a Center for Excellence in the field of Artificial Intelligence. This will not only benefit the students studying in this field, but will also radically change the way of education.

 

2) Digital Books

 

The Finance Minister presented a plan in this budget to convert books in various regional languages ​​of the country into digital format. This will enable students of schools and colleges to view the best literature in their mother tongue in digital format. This scheme will be implemented through the joint efforts of the Indian Language Committee and the UGC and it is estimated that about 22,000 books in various regional languages ​​will be made available in digital format.

 

3) Medical Colleges

 

To strengthen the healthcare system in the country and increase the availability of experts in this field, a decision was taken in this budget to increase the number of students in medical colleges across the country by ten thousand new capacity. A proposal was also made in this budget to increase this capacity by 75,000 admissions in the next five years. This will not only benefit students who want to pursue a career in the medical field, but it will also indirectly contribute to boosting the economy.

 

4) Indian Knowledge System

 

A few years ago, the Union Ministry of Education established the ‘Indian Knowledge System’ project to bring the knowledge of ancient Indian knowledge tradition to students of various courses. This ancient knowledge, available in many subjects like architecture, mathematics, agriculture, environment, astronomy, is conveyed to students at various levels from school education to higher education. For this, a provision of Rs. 50 crore has been made in this budget. This provision is 7.70% more than last year.

 

5) Research Scholarship

 

In order to ensure that more students participate in the field of research and get financial support, the scope of the Prime Minister’s Research Fellowship scheme has been expanded in this budget. It has been proposed to provide research scholarships to ten thousand students in the Indian Institute of Technology and the Indian Institute of Science in the next five years.

 

6) Atal Tinkering Lab

 

With the aim of developing a scientific attitude among school students and youth, the NITI Aayog had launched the Atal Tinkering Lab experiment across the country a few years ago. As a next step, this budget proposes to set up 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs in government schools across the country in the coming years. The necessary broadband internet connection facilities will also be provided in these schools.

 

7) Make for the World

 

The  youth will be taught the necessary skills for 'Make for India' and 'Make for the World' based on international partnerships and modern technology. Apart from this, 50 tourist destinations in the country will be developed under the 'Challenge Mode' scheme. Which will benefit the citizens there.

 

As mentioned above, all these provisions will benefit the education sector and students and at the same time, it will also benefit the economy.

Dr. Virendra Tatake