In a key new initiative, 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs will be set up in government schools “to cultivate the spirit of curiosity and innovation, and foster a scientific temper among young minds”. 
| Photo Credit: G.N. Rao

The 2025-26 Union Budget’s education-related announcements largely pertained to high-end capabilities. In addition to Centres of Excellence on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in agriculture, health, and sustainable cities, this Budget has proposed to set up an AI Centre of Excellence on Education, allocating ₹500 crore to it.

A Bharatiya Bhasha Pustak Scheme will provide Indian language books in digital form to school and higher education. Five third-generation Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) set up after 2014, including IIT Goa and IIT Dharwad, will be supported to take in 6,500 more students. IIT Patna will have expanded hostels and other infrastructure capacity. The Budget speech noted that the total number of students in 23 IITs has more than doubled — from 65,000 to 1.35 lakh students in the past 10 years.

This year, 10,000 more seats in medical colleges and hospitals will be added as part of an initiative to add 75,000 seats in the next 10 years.

Also read | Union Budget 2025: Spending on IITs, IIMs and higher education in general stagnates | Data 

Outlay increases have been seen in higher education, Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS), Central Universities, centrally sponsored schemes, and students financial aid. Higher education received about 7.7% more this year compared to last year. IKS have been allocated ₹50 crore. “This move will significantly boost UGC’s (University Grants Commission) efforts to prepare 22,000 textbooks for UG (undergraduate) and PG (postgraduate) studies in 22 Indian languages,” UGC Chairperson M. Jagadesh Kumar said. The Budget proposes a national digital repository for IKS

The PM Research Fellowship scheme will provide 10,000 scholarships over the next five years for technological research in the IITs and in the Indian Institute of Science.

In a key new initiative, 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs will be set up in government schools “to cultivate the spirit of curiosity and innovation, and foster a scientific temper among young minds”. This will come over and above providing broadband connectivity to all government secondary schools and Primary Health Centres in rural areas.

On skilling, the Budget talks about setting up five National Centres of Excellence for skilling with global expertise, and partnerships to equip our youth with the skills required for ‘Make for India, Make for the World’ manufacturing. The partnerships will cover curriculum design, training of trainers, a skills certification framework, and periodic reviews.

Image used for representational purpose.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The Union Budget of 2024-25 provides support to healthcare delivery through increased investment in infrastructure and expansion of the health workforce. It aims to make more affordable some lifesaving drugs needed for treating cancer, other chronic diseases, and some rare diseases.

It also seeks to expand the coverage of health insurance, while providing incentives for private sector-led medical tourism.

While health research gets a needed boost and digital health gets energised, primary healthcare does not get the needed support. Health research and child nutrition programmes get greater support but adolescent health and adult nutrition do not benefit from budgetary initiatives.

In her budgetary speech, the Finance Minister announced support for creating 75,000 more undergraduate seats in medical colleges over the next five years, starting with 10,000 more seats in the coming year. This will help in meeting health workforce shortages that are limiting access to needed health services, even as the demand for health services will rise due to a growing and ageing population. The Budget does not refer to other sections of the health workforce. Nurses and allied health professionals also need investments for scaling up and skilling up.

Compared to the previous year’s Budget, the proposed allocation for health has increased by 9.70%. This includes a 9.47% increase for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, a 7.55% increase for the AYUSH Ministry, and an 18.14% increase for health research (Indian Council of Medical Research, and the Department of Health Research). The Ayushman Bharat Infrastructure Mission (ABHIM) gets a 26.68% rise. While support for private sector initiatives to promote medical tourism has been announced, there is no budgetary increase for the Pradhan Mantri Swasth Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), which is the vehicle for strengthening the government’s tertiary care institutions.

Amongst the major health programmes, PMJAY (Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana), the public-funded health insurance programme, gets a substantial boost of 28.85%. This is needed, since the government earlier announced its intent to extend coverage to frontline health and nutrition workers while adding gig workers to the list of the scheme’s beneficiaries in this year’s Budget. However, the National Health Mission (NHM) gets only a 3.77% increase. This is surprising since NHM is the principal vehicle for strengthening primary care services and district hospitals. When the urban primary care component of NHM is yet to gather speed, this is a decision that needs to be reviewed.

A welcome announcement proposes to exempt customs duties on 36 lifesaving drugs needed for treating cancer as well as other chronic and rare diseases, while also reducing duties on six more drugs. It needs to be seen how far the pharmaceutical industry will pass on these benefits to the patients through reduced drug prices. Support for day care centres for cancer treatment in district hospitals was announced. Full exemption and concessional duties will extend to bulk drugs which are needed for the manufacture of medicines in India.

Overall, the Budget focuses more on delivering curative care than on health promotion and disease prevention. While the former is certainly needed, more needs to be done to keep the population healthy. Higher taxes on ultra-processed foods (UPF) and sugary drinks would have given strength to the Prime Minister’s recent call to avoid the health dangers associated with obesity.

*Prof. K. Srinath Reddy is Distinguished Professor of Public Health, and past President, Public Health Foundation of India

The full Budget for the year 2024-25 will be presented on July 23, with the Parliament session beginning a day earlier, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju announced on Saturday.

The Parliamentary Affairs minister said the Budget session will begin on July 22 and is scheduled to end on August 12.

Hon’ble President of India, on the recommendation of Government of India, has approved the proposal for summoning of both the Houses of Parliament for the Budget Session, 2024 from 22nd July, 2024 to 12 August, 2024 (Subject to exigencies of Parliamentary Business). Union Budget,…

— Kiren Rijiju (@KirenRijiju) July 6, 2024

“Hon’ble President of India, on the recommendation of Government of India, has approved the proposal for summoning of both the Houses of Parliament for the Budget Session, 2024 from 22nd July, 2024 to 12 August, 2024 (Subject to exigencies of Parliamentary Business). Union Budget, 2024-25 will be presented in Lok Sabha on 23 July, 2024,” the minister posted on X. 

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had presented the interim Budget in February in view of the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. She will be presenting her seventh consecutive Budget, becoming the first finance minister in India’s history to do so, surpassing the previous record set by Morarji Desai.

This will be the first Budget presented during Narendra Modi’s third term as Prime Minister and also the first under him in which the BJP does not have a majority on its own. 

Expectations from the Budget have been high and were fuelled further when President Droupadi Murmu said in her joint address that it will see “many historic steps” and accelerate the pace of reforms. 

“This Budget will be an effective document of the government’s far-reaching policies and futuristic vision. Along with major economic and social decisions, many historic steps will also be seen in this Budget… “The pace of reforms will be further accelerated in tune with the aspirations of people of India for rapid development,” she had said on June 27.

For the middle and salaried classes, one of the biggest expectations is that there will be a change in the income tax structure which will leave more disposable income in their hands.

Stormy Session?

The special session of the Parliament, the first in the 18th Lok Sabha, witnessed stormy scenes with the strengthened opposition looking to make its presence felt under the new Leader of the Opposition in the House, Rahul Gandhi. In the general elections, the results for which were declared on June 4, the INDIA alliance won 232 seats and restricted the BJP to 240. The NDA, though, has a comfortable majority with 293 MPs.

The NEET paper leak exam issue, Manipur, Emergency, Agnipath scheme and the alleged abuse of the Constitution by the ruling dispensation dominated the special session and are likely to make their presence felt in the Budget session as well.  

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman speaks during a post-budget press conference, in New Delhi, Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023.
| Photo Credit: PTI

The government will focus on economic growth and job creation and cut down the fiscal deficit, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Wednesday, presenting its last full budget in Parliament before the 2024 election.

Here are the charts that show major aspects of Union Budget 2023:

Budget at a glance

The Narendra Modi government focused on a slew of measures that expanded Capital Expenditure spending and tied in various priorities including Green Growth, Youth Power, and Inclusive Development.

Fiscal deficit would be brought down to below 4.5% by 2025-26, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. She also said that tax receipts for the next fiscal are budgeted at ₹23.3 lakh crore and States would be allowed 3.5% of GDP as fiscal deficit.

What funds the deficit

The government plans to borrow a record ₹15.4 lakh crore from dated securities in FY24 to meet its expenditure requirement to prop up the economy. This is higher than the total borrowing of ₹14.21 lakh crore for the current financial year ending March 31, 2023.

Rupee come from

Borrowings and other liabilities account for the largest avenue from where the Budget money comes.

Rupee goes to

With 20% of its budget going into interest payments, the State’s share of taxes and duties and the Central sector scheme assume two major areas of spending for the government.

State-wise allocation of central taxes and duties

Here is the state-wise distribution of net proceeds of Union Taxes and Duties for Budget Estimates 2023-24. The distribution was conducted according to the recommendation of the 15th Finance Commission which fixed the share of states at 41% of the net proceeds of sharable Central Taxes and Income Tax.

Transfer to states/UTs

Allocation to Ministries

The Union Budget allocated a massive ₹5.94 lakh crore for the Defence Ministry, a 13% increase year-on-year from last year’s budget estimates.

Outlay for Major Schemes

The Union Budget 2023-24 document listed the new allocations for core welfare schemes that drive socio-economic development.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a number of measures for the agriculture sector, including an increase in the credit target to ₹20 lakh crore, with focus on animal husbandry, dairy and fisheries.

% change for major schemes

Here’s a roundup of how the budgetary allocations for some of the key schemes have changed. While the MGNREGS budget saw a 32% decrease from the revised estimates of 2022-23, the outlay for PM-Kisan remained the same.

Railway Budget in a Glance

With an outlay of ₹2.40 lakh crore for the financial year 2023-24 compared to ₹1.40 lakh crore in the FY22-23, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the outlay for the railways is nine times the amount provided in 2013-2014.

Cheaper vs Dearer

With an eye on promoting exports, boosting domestic manufacturing and enhancing value addition, Union Budget 2023-24 has proposed number of changes to Customs Duty regime that is likely to make mobile phones and televisions cheaper and certain class of automobiles, including EVs, as well as toys and bicycles dearer.

Illustration: Satheesh Vellinezhi

With the global economy adrift, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman sought to carve out an ark for India in her fifth Union Budget by trying to nudge domestic consumption and reluctant private investments upwards, while also seeking to create a feel-good factor among specific segments of voters as the government gears up for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

The FM summed up the BJP-led government’s achievements since 2014 as “leaving no one behind”, taking just 200-odd words to outline the doubling of per capita income to ₹1.97 lakh, the increasing formalisation of the economy and the expansion of targeted benefits. She then used the rest of her Budget speech to soothe sections of society that may have felt a tad left behind over its nine-year-tenure.

To assuage the salaried middle class, deflated by a sustained streak of high inflation, the tax-free limit under the new exemption-less income tax regime was raised to ₹7 lakh from ₹5 lakh. The cap on non-government employees’ leave encashment at the time of retirement was raised to ₹25 lakh from ₹3 lakh.

Help for those left behind

The first Budget of the Amrit Kaal — the 25-year period leading to the centenary of Indian independence in 2047 — aimed to build on existing “inclusive development” efforts that assign overall priority for the underprivileged, the Minister said. She launched new socio-economic development schemes: the PM Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups Development Mission, and the PM Vishwakarma Kaushal Samman to support artisans from weaker sections and Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes.

Some measures were also announced to alleviate the lot of micro, small and medium enterprises that have faced successive shocks over the last few years, from demonetisation to the pandemic.

Poll-pleasing focus on jobs

While the Finance Minister addressed various sections’ aspirations through her less-than-90-minutes speech, the broader underlying message was aimed at India’s restive youth and their hopes of securing a job.

References to “job” creation in a Budget speech hit a six-year high, with the Minister flagging it seven times in different contexts, compared to just two mentions in the 2022-23 Budget speech and three references in the year before that.

Giving an impetus to growth and job creation, and creating opportunities, especially for the youth, she said, was a key focus of the government’s economic agenda to achieve its vision for the Amrit Kaal, which will culminate in 2047.

It is perhaps no coincidence that the last time job creation figured high (with six mentions) was when the late Arun Jaitley presented the Budget for 2018-19 — another Budget presented in the year before a general election.

Capex plans depend on States

Polls apart, the Budget’s grand plan to ramp up infrastructure capex to ₹10 lakh crore in the hope that it gives greater traction to a revival in private investments will hinge on the States — which have been offered ₹1.3 lakh crore in the form of 50-year interest-free loans — doing their bit, and Indian industry being bold enough to take risks during a tumultuous, unpredictable period also marked by rising interest rates.

The deposit limit on savings schemes for senior citizens was doubled to ₹30 lakh and a new one-time small savings scheme was also announced for women to invest upto ₹2 lakh with 7.5% returns assured for two years.

An uptick in small savings collections will also help the government fund its fiscal deficit target of 5.9% of GDP in the coming year (from the 6.4% estimated in 2022-23), with net market borrowings pegged at ₹11.8 lakh crore, Ms. Sitharaman said.

While the Economic Survey projected a 6.5% growth for the year ahead, the Budget estimates a nominal GDP growth of 10.5% for its revenue calculations. Finance Secretary T.V. Somanathan explained that this could be derived from any combination of real growth and inflation, and was not a yardstick for hopes about either.