Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the Union Budget 2025-2026 would focus on the expansion of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) across the nation. While presenting the budget, Sitharaman said that the number of students in 23 IITs has increased by 100 per cent in the last 10 years.
“IITs capacity will be expanded. The total number of students in 23 IITs has increased 100% from 65,000 to 1.35 lakh in the past 10 years,” the finance minister said in her address on Saturday. “Additional infrastructure will be created in the five IITs started after 2014, and IIT Patna will also be expanded,” she added while proposing the budget.
Sitharaman created history after she presented her eighth consecutive budget in the Indian parliament, the highest ever being presented by any finance minister. This was the first full budget of the NDA government after the alliance came to power for the third consecutive time.
While speaking about the education sector, Sitharaman proposed the addition of around 10,000 seats in medical colleges across India by next year. The government also plans to add a total of 75,000 seats over the next five years. To promote research, Sitharaman also announced the set up of around 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs in the country in the next five years.
The budget also mentioned that all government secondary schools will be provided with broadband connectivity. The government also plans to promote education in Indian languages with the Bhartiya Bhasha Pustak Scheme. Five National Centre of Excellence will be set up in the country with global expertise to upskill youth with skills needed for ‘Make in India and Make for the World’ initiatives.
Apart from this, a centre of excellence in AI for education will also be established in three sectors of education. This year’s budget also talked about investing in people with the Saksham Aganwadi and Poshan 2.0 programme. The initiative aims to benefit more than eight crore children, 20 lakh adolescent girls and pregnant women.
“The investment and turnover limits for classification of all MSMEs will be enhanced to 2.5 and 2 times, respectively. This will give them the confidence to grow and generate employment for our youth,” she said while speaking about the development and upliftment of the youth.
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Budget 2025: Five new IITs set to get bigger to take in 5,600 more students
