Union Minister of State for Education Dr Subhas Sarkar expresses satisfaction at overall Union Budget 2023

“This time all the sections has been given a priority with excellence with a very comprehensive and visionary budget under the leadership of our Hon’ble PM Shri @narendramodi ji which  will help in achieving goal of Viksit Bharat and provide the boost to education sector. My gratitude to FM Smt @nsitharaman Ji for the budget. #AmritKaalBudget” as quoted by Union Minister of State for Education Dr Subhas Sarkar.

With pleasant smile and contentment Dr.Subhas Sarkar started the conversion beginning with Women Empowerment and self help group.
The budget allocated to the Women and Child Development Ministry, the nodal department of the government for the welfare of women and children, stood at Rs 25,448.75 crore in 2023-24, an increase of Rs 267 crore from Rs 25,172.28 crore allotted in 2022-23. It is the ‘first Budget of Amrit Kaal’ and a blueprint for India@100 that revolves around seven main priorities, which form the ‘Saptarishis’. Poising India’s growth at 7%, he further noted that the world has recognised the Indian economy as a bright star that is headed towards a bright future. The PM-VIKAS scheme would greatly benefit women and people belonging to the weaker sections of society, including Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Castes.

Talking about MSME ,Dr.Subhas Sarkar said that  the government has proposed to spend a record Rs 22,138 crore on allocations aimed at micro, small, and medium enterprises ministry in the Budget 2023-24, giving a boost to employment in the country and announced a package of assistance for artisans and craftspeople while presenting the Union Budget 2023-24 in Parliament. The newly-conceptualised Pradhan Mantri Vishwakarma Kaushal Samman (PM-VIKAS) scheme will enable the country’s artisans to improve the quality, scale, and reach of their products, integrating them with the Micro, Small and Medium-scale Enterprises (MSME) value chain. For centuries, traditional artisans and craftspeople who worked with their hands using tools have brought renown to India, generally referred to as ‘Vishwakarma’. Invoking the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat, the art and handicrafts created by the Vishwakarma represent the true spirit of a self-reliant India. Financial support,Access to advanced skill training,Knowledge of modern digital techniques and efficient green technologies, Brand promotion, Linkage with local and global market, Digital payments, Social security will be rendered.

Adding about Tourism he said that further 50 tourist destinations across the country will be developed as a “whole package” in a bid to boost tourist destinations which will be selected through challenge mode. States will be encouraged to set a “Unity Mall” in the capital city or most popular tourist destination in the state for the promotion of ‘One District, One product’ theme. Promotion of tourism will be taken up on mission mode with active participation of states, convergence of government programmes, and public-private-partnerships for immense attraction for domestic as well as foreign tourists. There is a large potential to be tapped in tourism. The sector holds huge opportunities for jobs and entrepreneurship, for the youth in particular, he said.

Good infrastructure newly established infrastructure finance secretariat will assist in attracting more private investment and employability and it has announced hiking the capital expenditure by 33 per cent to Rs 10 lakh crore for infrastructure development for 2023-24 and will be at 3.3 per cent of the GDP. An expert committee will also be set up to make infrastructure classification and financing framework suitable for Amrit Kaal. All logistics and connectivity infrastructure projects, entailing an investment of over Rs 500 crore, are routed through the NPG, constituted under the PM Gati Shakti initiative.

 “Green growth” will be one of the seven priority sectors (“Saptarishi”) of the Union Budget 2023.In green growth priority sector will include multiple programmes on green fuel, green energy, green farming, green mobility, green buildings and green equipment. This will also include policies for efficient use of energy across various sectors.These green growth efforts will help in reducing carbon intensity of the economy and provides for large scale green job opportunities.

In Education this year is the highest Budget after Independence. After nearly three years of massive disruption caused by the pandemic, the country’s education sector is looking forward to a new era. The government’s primary focus is on up skilling the youth and increasing digitalization in the education sector. The education sector has received its highest-ever allocation of INR 1.12 lakh crore ($ 13.66 Bn) in the Union Budget 23-24. Allocation for school education has increased by 8 percent from INR 63,449 crore ($ 7.74 Bn) in 2022-23 to INR 68,804 ($ 8.39 Bn) crore in 2023-24. The budget has further acknowledged the need for effective teacher training and building resilient mechanisms in education delivery. To this end, the government will re-envision teachers’ training through innovative pedagogy, curriculum transaction, continuous professional development, dipstick surveys, and ICT implementation. Further, District Institutes of Education and Training will be developed as vibrant centres of excellence.

National Digital Library has been importantly initiated.The Centre will set up a National Digital Library for children and youth to facilitate access to quality books across subjects, A National Digital Library for children and adolescents will be set up for facilitating the availability of quality books across geographies, languages, genres and levels and device-agnostic accessibility, he said, adding that this will help children and adolescents overcome learning losses due to the Covid-19 pandemic, that the states will be encouraged to set up physical libraries for them at panchayat and ward levels and provide infrastructure for accessing the same.

Government will establish 157 new nursing colleges, Dr.Subhas Sarkar added while talking about budget allocation in the sector of health and education. Facilities in select Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) labs will be made available for research by public and private medical colleges the initiative of a new research scheme for research in the Pharma sector. 

500 aspirational blocks and artificial intelligence will be enriched.In a bid to improve the performance of areas that are lagging on various development parameters, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently Aspirational Blocks Programme. While Aspirational Blocks Programme was announced in the Union Budget 2022-23, it will initially cover 500 districts across 31 states and Union Territories with over half of the blocks situated in six states – Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal. The NITI Aayog, in collaboration with the states, will publish a quarterly ranking of these blocks based on their performance on development indicators covering sectors such as health, education and nutrition among others. “50 institutes of eminence will be prepared for artificial intelligence and robotics. This will make artificial intelligence work for India,” says Dr Subhas Sarkar, Union Minister. 

Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana 4.0 will be launched to skill lakhs of youth within the next three years. On-job training, industry partnership, and alignment of courses with needs of industry will be emphasized, he shared that the scheme will also cover new age courses for Industry 4.0 like coding, AI, robotics, mechatronics, IOT, 3D printing, drones, and soft skills.

PM POSHAN  /Mid Day Meal is the education ministry’s second largest scheme, after Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, accounting for 10% of of the total Rs 1,04,277 allocation to the ministry of education (MoE) in 2022-23. Both are implemented by the MoE’s department of school education and literacy.

Individual taxpayers in India pay income tax based on a slab system. A slab system means that different tax rates are prescribed for different income ranges. It means that tax rates continue to rise as the taxpayer’s income rises. The Finance minister also reduced the highest surcharge in the country to 25% from the current 37%. 

This type of taxation allows the country to have progressive and equitable tax systems. 

On question how Bengal will be benefitted  with this Budget ,Dr.Subhas Sarkar said that  Bengal can establish at least 15 nursing colleges out of 157 as proposed but  the problem with Bengal is  mainly land acquisition ,that this year more investment  was given to Railway and 64 projects are still pending because of this issues. He appeals the Bengal government  to seek solution and  immediately pass the land acquisition and take the benefits  given by Railway and Education Ministry. This year 10 lakhs crore has been sanctioned on infrastructure and Bengal can focus on the same to get maximum mileage for the mass.

Talking on Education system he spoke on length on how implementation has been taken to strengthen the same. Education is fundamental for achieving full human potential, developing an equitable and just society, and promoting national development.
India’s progress in building social infrastructure where medical colleges and universities seem to take the central position. In the last eight years, India has built a medical college every month and a college every two days and one university every week, while India had 725 universities before 2014, over 300 universities have been opened in just the last eight years, apart from 5,000 colleges. The Central government has established a number  of higher institutes including IITs, IIMS, IIITs and AIIMS across the country.
In the last 6 years, on average, a new IIT has been opened every year the subsequent 5 years, 16 Indian Institutes of Information Technologies has been established and  lot of focus has been put into the development of infrastructure and structural reform in higher education. The government has launched “Study in India”, a single window platform covering all aspects higher education opportunities for foreign students in the country, including details of schools and research institutes, visa rules, fee concessions, among others

Efforts to attract higher number of foreign students and from more diverse geographies include identification of 20 Indian universities as “institutions of eminence” to build students’ interest as well as to improve India’s representation in world’s top 100 universities. The decision by the University Grants Commission (UGC) to allow foreign universities to set up campuses in India with the freedom to structure courses and fees could drastically alter the higher education ecosystem. Ministry of Education (MOE) has launched a study in India Programme which aims to attract foreign students to Indian higher educational institutions (HEIs) through systematic brand building, marketing, social media and digital marketing campaigns. The programme involves a partnership with 160 plus select Indian institutes/universities (based on NIRF Ranking and NAAC grading).
The policy is a comprehensive framework for elementary education to higher education as well as vocational training in both rural and urban India.

Report and Photo by Ms. Bornali Biswas, Editor in Chief -News Mania

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