New Delhi, Feb 26 (Inditop.com) India Friday allocated Rs.11,000 crore (Rs.110 billion/$2.38 billion) for its higher education sector, which is around seven percent more than the 2009-10 financial year.
As per the union budget 2010-11, the central government has given more than Rs.1,400 crore to higher education in the coming fiscal compared to the current financial year.
Of the total plan outlay, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has pegged an amount of Rs.500 crore for subsidising students loans.
To enable students from economically weaker sections to access higher education, a scheme to provide full interest subsidy during the period of moratorium has been introduced to cover loans taken from scheduled banks to pursue any of the approved courses of study in technical and professional streams from recognised institutions in India, the minister said in his budget speech.
The budget has kept aside a sum of Rs.400 crore for new Indian Institutes of Technology that have recently came into operation. This amount is Rs.100 crore more than what was pegged during fiscal 2009-10.
Of the Rs.11,000 crore, the budget has pegged Rs.5,562 crore for general education, Rs.4,266 crore for technical education, and Rs.1,078 crore for education improvement in north-eastern areas.
