01/02/25
With a puny allocation of 0.5% of GDP and 2% of budget to the education sector, the government has unsurprisingly failed to deliver on its promise of “100 percent good quality school education” and “inclusive growth.”
The PM-Poshan scheme (which includes the mid-day meal scheme) receives an ironic increase of 0.2% in budget allocation nominally from Rs. 12467.39Cr to Rs. 12500 Cr which amounts to a ridiculous increase in 5 paisa per child when the Poshan Tracker Data for June 2024 reveals that 17 per cent or 2.7 crore children in India are underweight, 36 per cent stunted and 6 per cent wasted. A similar reduction follows for the Saksham Anganwadi scheme – a troubling indication of negligence of the severe malnutrition issues facing India.
In light of severe underutilization of funds, the increased allocation of funds from Rs 73,008Cr to Rs 78,572Cr to school education can only be welcomed with skepticism.
The government has allocated Rs 20,000 crore for a private-sector-driven Research, Development, and Innovation initiative, announced in the July 2024 Budget, to encourage scientific advancements while public schemes for the same have witnessed a drop of 7.89% from Rs 355Cr to Rs 327Cr. This highlights the growing orientation of scientific and technological innovations towards the needs of private capital and market and away from societal concerns.
The 2025-26 budget allocations for higher education show a mere 5% increase from Rs 47619.77 Cr to Rs 50077.95 Cr in nominal terms, which when accounted for 5.22% inflation rate reveals no change at all. In fact, the share of Higher Education in the budget is less than 1% this year and the estimates paint an even bleaker picture once we look at the expenditure breakdown.
In the budget we are seeing dilution of serious academic spending that is now diverted to an unknown territory of “Indian Knowledge Systems”, where budgetary allocation rose from a 10 Cr to 50 Cr. Most certainly an ideological move towards sanskritised versions of pseudo science and Sangh versions of distorted history. While the World Class Institutions scheme, aimed at promoting “affordable world class academic and research facilities” has seen a disastrous reduction of over 73% from Rs. 1800 Cr. to Rs. 475.12 Cr. The government’s aim to forge a nation in its vision of a distorted antiquity at the cost of the future of over 43 million students enrolled in higher education could not have been clearer. It seeks to undermine the progress in academics and research India has made so far to the extent that it becomes impossible to be at par with the developed nations in this respect.
The promise of additional infrastructure provision to the IITs is nothing short of a hoax given the 7% slash in capital expenditure from Rs. 11.06Cr in 2024-25 to 10.27 Cr. in 2025-26. This ruse comes in the wake of crumbling infrastructure in not only the IITs and IIMs but all other Central universities which find no mention in the Finance Minister’s Speech.
As the fund allocation to the UGC remains 47% less as compared to 2023-24, more than 3% of total Grants to Central Universities will go as repayment of principal under and interest of HEFA loans. This situation is no different in the case of Grants to the IITs, IISERs, and IIMs. The increasing share of HEFA loans from 372 Cr in 2024-25 to 462 Cr in 2025-26 for the Central universities traces the increasing influx of private capital into public funded universities, posing the serious risk of compromising the autonomy of these institutions.
With the NEP, the government is accelerating its push to commodify education, making it more accessible to the wealthier sections of society while fostering an environment that excludes students from marginalized backgrounds from publicly funded education.
Sd/-Mayukh Biswas (General Secretary)
VP Sanu (President)