– Mita Mukherjee

Bengal’s new finance minister, Swapan Dasgupta, in his budget speech on Monday, announced a host of measures starting from setting up a new IIT and an IIM in North Bengal, developing Jadavpur University to an Institute of Eminence, recruiting 50,000 school and college teachers, adopting a road map with student-centric approach to establish excellence in Bengal’s education system and regain its past glory in the field of education.

“A strategic roadmap will be prepared focusing on modernisation of classrooms, filling up vacant posts, streamlining administrative processes through  student- centric approaches so that development in education take place through a continuous process,” the minister said, during the first budget speech of the new BJP government.

The two new IIT and IIM will be set up in North Bengal with an aim to offer world-class education in the fields of education and management, Dasgupta said.

Once the announcement materialise, Bengal will have two Indian Institute of Technolgy (IIT) and the same number of Indian Institute of Management (IIM). The existing Kharagpur IIT and IIM Kolkata happen to be the first among the IITs and IIMs in the country.

“The aim of our new government is to develop Vikshit Bengal as part of the Centre’s Vikshit Bharat scheme,” the finance minister said.

In another significant announcement, Dasgupta said that Centre would contribute Rs 1000 crore and the state Rs 200 crore over five years to upgrade Jadavpur University to an Institute of Excellence.

Many more initiatives were announced in education in the budget speech.

An announcement was made for setting up a new sports university to promote sports activities among youth. Rs 150 crore has been allocated for the project.

Another Rs 50 crore was allocated to upgrade Sanskrit College and University and promoting Sanskrit language.

In addition, integrated university townships will be developed in partnership with foreign universities to create an academic zone around industrial hubs.

To promote education among women, the state proposed to set up six new girls’ colleges one each in Contai, Kaliachak,  Jangipur, Sagar, Tufanganj and Falta. A proposal was also placed to build a girls’ hostel in every district to enable girl students from far off places to stay and study at high schools particularly in subjects like science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). In another step aiming to promote hygiene among girl students, a proposal was made to instal sanitary vending machines in government schools, colleges and universities.

In another move to check dropout of girl students in higher education, the government said it would offer a one-time grant if Rs 50,000 to all female students who take admission in state-aided colleges. Rs 1000 crore was allocated for this scheme.

Dasgupta said the Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) will be modernized. Rs 570 crore has been allocated under the Pradhan Mantri Skilling and Employability Transformation ( PM-SETU) Scheme.

Moreover, he said the government will implement the Centre’s PM-SHREE scheme for developing selected schools to model institutes. These schools will have modern infrastructure and they will offer technology-enabled education. Rs 2100 crore was allocated for this scheme.

The minister said a budgetary allocation of Rs 200 crore has been made to set up Atal Tinkering Labs in 1000 schools.

This apart the government proposed to allocate land to build Navodaya Vidyalayas in the state.

Land has been identified for two Kendriya Vidyalayas and to help students aspiring to crack competitive exams such as IIT-JEE, NEET and CAT free coaching and training Centre’s would be set up in all districts.

Also, there is a proposal to set up four new medical colleges at Alipurduar, Kalimpong, Dakshin Dinajpur and Paschim Bardhaman.

The number of medical seats at undergraduate level will be increased by 650 and at the postgraduate level by 450, the minister said.

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