Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)

Mangalore, Mar 5: Lamenting the poor state of affairs in the educational sector, B Rajashekhar Murthy, state president, Student Federation of India (SFI) lamented the fact that although there was a rise of 20% in terms of budgetary allocation for the education sector, the UPA government on its part has not made an earnest effort for the promotion of the education sector in the country, in a press release here.  

Giving statistics Murthy informed that the general budget had earmarked Rs 34,400 crore for the education sector, which is only 4.58% of the total plan outlay of Rs 3,75,485 crore. This was against the UPA government’s promise to provide 6 per cent of the GDP, he added.  

Further more according to him the union budget had made provisions for the same at around Rs 28,674 crore last year and this was increased to Rs 34,400 this year. The government did not provide additional grants, despite a recent survey report placed before the parliament, pointing out at the usage of only 2.84 per cent for education during 2007-08, stated the release.  

With regard to starting of new universities in the country, he said although finance minister P Chidambaram had promised the setting up of 16 central universities and 3 IITs along with 3 IIScs, he had made no provision for the same nor had he kept aside a specific amount for this purpose in the budget, he rued.  

Moreover, according to him the budget was detrimental to the interests of the backward community students. In this context he said the budget had allocated Rs 75 crore for distributing Rajiv Gandhi scholarships for higher education to SC/ST students as against last year’s allocation of Rs 88 crore.  

Further he informed that the budget had reduced grants for post preuniversity scholarships by Rs 80 crore. Last year’s budget had provided Rs 811 crore for 33.6 crore students and this year, the budget had provided Rs 731 crore for disbursal of scholarships to 36.3 crore students.  

B Murthy also demanded universities for Bangalore and Gulbarga as well.