Reshma Ravishanker

The union budget 2025-26, which was presented by union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday has a slew of announcements from upgrading infrastructure in premier institutes such as the IITs and providing broadband connections to all secondary schools in the country.

Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented her eighth consecutive budget in parliament on Saturday. However, the budget presentation began with commotion by the opposition leaders and speaker Om Birla remarked that never in the past has a budget session been interrupted that way.  

Through the 1 hour and 16 minutes long budget, union minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government continued its efforts to accelerate growth, secure inclusive developments, invigorate private sector growth and power India’s rising middle class. Sitaraman is in the list of a few finance ministers including Morarji Desai, Yashwant Sinha and P Chidambaram who have presented over six budgets each.

 Among the highlights for the education sector, Sitharaman said that 50,000 labs will be set up in government schools over the next five years to promote curiosity, innovation, and scientific temper.

Under the newly announced BharatNet Scheme, the union government has said that broadband connectivity will be assured for all government secondary schools in rural areas and primary health centres.

To ease learning for students and enhance subject comprehension, the Bharatiya Bhasha Pustak Scheme has been announced under which digital-form Indian language books for school and higher education.

A slew of announcements was also made for the higher education centre. According to the recent reports by the union government, IIT student capacity has doubled in 10 years (from 65,000 to 1.35 lakh). To support this, Sitharaman said that additional infrastructure will be created in five IITs established after 2014 to accommodate 6,500 more students.

A new Centre of Excellence in AI for education with an outlay of ₹500 crore rupees has been announced.

While 1.1 lakh UG and PG medical seats were added in 10 years (which is a 130% increase), 10,000 additional seats to be created in medical colleges in the next academic year to cater to a growing demand. The increase in seats will be made in a phased manner with a total of 75,000 seats in the next five years.

Youth and skilling

Five new National Centres of Excellence to be set up with global partnerships to equip youth with skills for “Make for India, Make for the World” manufacturing.

The Rural Prosperity and Resilience Programme, a multi-sectoral programme focusing on skilling, investment, and technology to address underemployment in agriculture and rural areas was also announced.

A National Institute of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship, and Management to be established in Bihar to create skilling, entrepreneurship, and employment opportunities for youth. Intensive skill development programs in Institutes of Hospitality Management will be started for students to improve employability.

Other Highlights

• A Gyan Bharatam Mission for survey, documentation and conservation of Indian manuscript heritage with academic institutions, museums, libraries and private collectors will be undertaken to cover more than 1 crore manuscripts. Centre will then set up a National Digital Repository of Indian knowledge systems for knowledge sharing.
• In the next five years, under the PM Research Fellowship scheme, centre to provide 10,000 fellowships for technological research in IITs and IISc with enhanced financial support.
• The cost norms for the nutritional support in anganwadis will be enhanced appropriately.
• TCS on remittances for education purposes proposed to be removed (where such remittance is out of a loan taken from a specified financial institution).

Also read: Budget 2025: What the education sector is expecting