Parliament Question: Budget Allocation for Education Sector

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION No. 3801 ANSWERED ON 16.03.2026 Budget Allocation for Education Sector

3801. Shri Anurag Sharma:

Shri Lalji Verma:

Will the Minister of EDUCATION be pleased to state:

(a) the total budget allocation for the education sector during the years 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27;

(b) the details of financial strategy, including Union Budget provisions, State Government contributions and other funding mechanisms formulated to bridge the existing gap;

(c) the extent to which the present allocations meet the assessed requirement and the gaps that remain;

(d) whether the Government has taken any steps to ensure equitable digital access in all States and regions in the country with special emphasis on rural and economically backward areas; and

(e) if so, the details thereof along with the monitoring mechanism adopted for effective implementation nationwide annually? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION (DR. SUKANTA MAJUMDAR)

(a): The details of budget allocation to Ministry of Education during the years 2024-25, 2025- 26 and 2026-27 are given in the table given below-: (Rs. in crore) Financial Year Budget Allocation to Ministry of Education 2024-25 1,21,118 2025-26 1,28,650 2026-27 1,39,289

(b) & (c): Education being in the Concurrent List of the Constitution, increasing expenditure in education is the responsibility of the Central and States Governments. As per National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the targeted public expenditure on Education by Centre and States/UTs is 6% of GDP. The Government of India has consistently increased the budgetallocation of the Ministry of Education from Rs.93,224.31 crore in F.Y. 2021-22 to Rs.

1,39,289.48 crore in 2026-27(an increase of 49.4% in 5 years).

As per latest report on Analysis of Budgeted Expenditure on Education, 2022-23, details of total expenditure on education by Centre and States/UTs from 2018-19 to 2022-23 is

given as under: (Rs. in crore) Expenditure on Education Centre/States 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 2022-23

(Actual) (Actual) (Actual) (RE) (BE) Centre 1,82,139 2,02,991 2,13,883 2,73,107 2,92,548 States/UTs 5,54,442 6,09,222 6,13,790 7,13,793 7,99,920 Total 7,36,581 8,12,214 8,27,673 9,86,899 10,92,467 It is evident from the above table that the expenditure on education of Centre and States/UTs is continuously increasing since 2018-19.

Union Budget 2026-27 has announced setting up of 5 University Townships in the vicinity of major industrial and logistic corridors and 1 girls’ hostel in every district through Viability Gap Funding /capital support to encourage enrolment of girls in STEM institutes/ courses.

(d) & (e): As education is in the Concurrent List of the Constitution, ensuring equitable digital access of education in all States is the responsibility of both Central and States Governments.

Majority of the schools are under the domain of respective State and UT Governments. Under Samagra Shiksha, financial assistance is provided to States/UTs, including rural, tribal and economically backward areas, inter-alia for setting up of ICT labs and Smart Classrooms in Government and Government Aided Schools having classes VI to XII.

Till date 1,79,153 ICT Labs and 1,76,738 Smart Classrooms have been sanctioned to State/UT Governments. Based on the UDISE+ data and funds approved in Project Approval Board’s (PAB) meetings to States/UTs for the year 2025-26, gaps were identified in saturating ICT Labs and Smart Classrooms in Secondary and Senior Secondary Schools in States/UTs.

To address this gap, 22,618 ICT Labs and 29,920 Smart Classrooms in States/UTs were approved for the saturation of these facilities in the year 2025-26. Further, to saturate all functional Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs) 3,564 ICT Labs and 3,655 Smart Classrooms were approved in the year 2024-25. The year wise details of funds allocated in the last four years (i.e. from 2021-22 to 2024-25) for ICT Labs and Smart Classrooms in Government and Government-aided schools is as under:

(Rs. in lakh) Financial Year ICT Labs Smart Classrooms 2021-22 68,456 91,093 2022-23 41,824 73,823 2023-24 55,904 53,730 2024-25 54,372 59,519The Government of India, in the Budget 2025-26, has announced provision of broadband connectivity to all Government Secondary Schools in rural areas, under the ‘BharatNet’ project to enhance digital infrastructure in remote areas by BSNL.

To achieve the objectives of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 and to bridge the digital divide in education, a comprehensive initiative called PM eVidya was initiated as part of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan’ on 17th May, 2020, which unifies all efforts related to digital/online/on-air education to enable multi-mode access to education across the country under the aegis of NEP 2020. States/UTs collaborate with NCERT to utilise, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of these initiatives as per their requirements in mother tongue/local/regional languages. PM eVidya includes 200 DTH TV Channels allotted to States/UTs/Autonomous Bodies (ABs)/Other Ministries in Government of India and 400 Radio channels to enable them to provide supplementary education as per their requirement in various Indian languages for classes 1-12.

Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing (DIKSHA) is the Nation’s One Nation, One Digital platform for providing quality e-content for school education including Government schools in States/UTs along with QR coded Energised Textbooks (ETBs) for all grades. States/UTs/Abs have generated and contributed over 3.7 lakh content in mother local/regional languages enabling multilingualism. DIKSHA Offline supports areas with limited or no internet connectivity. The stakeholders have access to more than 450 Virtual Labs and 100 Virtual skill labs on DIKSHA.

In Higher Education, various initiatives / reforms have been carried out such as Automated Permanent Academic Account Registry (APAAR ID) of individual student which will act as lifelong identity to track their educational journey and achievements from, pre- primary to higher education; introduction of PM Vidyalaxmi scheme to provide financial support to meritorious students inter-alia enabling collateral free, guarantor free loan through a simple, transparent and student-friendly and entirely digital application process; revised regulation of ODL / Online Education; permitting up to 40% credits in regular courses using SWAYAM platform; launch of new SWAYAM Plus portal with aim to enhance skill and upskilling and reskilling of existing manpower employed in different sectors; Integration of technology in administration of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) from admission to grant of degree through SAMARTH; National Digital Library (NDL): Providing free access to a vast repository of academic resources, textbooks, and research papers; e-PG Pathshala is an initiative by the Ministry of Education under the National Mission on Education through ICT(NME-ICT), implemented by the UGC to provide high-quality, free e-content for postgraduate education, DTH Channels (Swayam Prabha): under which 24/7 educational content delivered through direct-to-home channels, ensuring reach in remote areas.

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