More IITs, Less Budget as Govt Squeezes Higher Education Funds
New Delhi: One of the main highlights of the Budget 2014-15 announced by the Narendra Modi government was intentions to establish 5 new IITs and 5 new IIMs. However, amongst the many higher education budget cuts announced this January, Rs 500 allocated for this purpose has got reduced to just Rs 65 crore (just 13% of the original budget) that will actually be disbursed by the government.
In the revised budget estimates for 2014-15, the government has brought down the higher education funds from Rs 16,900 crore to Rs 13,000 crore – registering a loss of Rs 3,900 crore for the higher education sector in India.
The 16 IITs had been allocated Rs 2,500 crore earlier but now they will be getting only Rs 2,337 crore – with a cut of Rs 163 crore.  This means that six of the 8 new IITs announced in 2008-12 will not be able to move to the new campuses this year too.
According to the original plan, the HRD Ministry had to disburse funds for the final phase of construction of the new campuses of these IITs and they had to move from their temporary campuses by July this year.
A recent hike announced by IITs in junior research fellowships (JRF) from Rs 16,000 to Rs 25,000; and in senior research fellowships from Rs 18,000 to Rs 28,000 means that the premier engineering institutes of India face an additional burden of Rs 150 crore this year.
Other significant budget revisions (read cuts) announced by the government for this financial year include:
- Cut from Rs 100 crore to Rs 5 crore (cut of 95%) for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs),
- Cut from Rs 100 crore to Rs 15 crore (cut of Rs 85%) Madan Mohan Malviya National Mission on Teachers Training, and
- Cut from Rs 2,200 crore to Rs 397 crore (cut of 82%) for Rashtriya Uchcha Siksha Abhiyan.
While the government had been quite generous in announcing new IITs and IIMs earlier, these massive budget cuts spell bad omen for the existing engineering and management institutes of India.