Union Budget: Plan to make youth more skilled, new IITs, IIMs on the anvil

Modi Government in its maiden Budget has assertively put the roadmap for making things better in terms of employment, health and education. Keeping youth in mind, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday allocated an amount of Rs 500 crore each for five new IITs and IIMs. IITs, which are the premiere institute for engineering, will be established in cities like Jammu, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Aiming to provide youth business acumen and entrepreneurship ability, various IIMs will be established in Punjab, Bihar, Odisha, Himachal Pradesh, and Maharashtra. With these, India will have a total of 18 IIMs and 21 IITs. Earlier, in between 2008 and 2011, UPA had set up seven new IIMs and eight new IITs.

While emphasising on need to have world class university, the Minister said, "The country needs a large number of centres of higher learning which are world class".

Rs 500 crore allocated to set up five more IIMs and IITs

Keeping youth in mind, Finance minister also budgeted for innovative mediums like virtual class rooms for online education and allocated an amount of Rs 100 crore for the same. Budget also underscored the plan to make youth skilled one through multi-school program and entrepreneurial skills. On Wednesday, the economic survey had also earmarked the same point.

"Demographic advantage is unlikely to last indefinitely. Therefore, timely action to make people healthy, educated, and adequately skilled is of paramount importance", the Survey said.

Earlier in 2013-14 Budget, the erstwhile government had allocated Rs 1000 crore for youth skill development programmes.

Youth-World's largest workforce

India has one of the largest workforces in world in terms of youth. According to an estimation, nearly two third of Indians are below the age of 35 years, which is matter of envy for other developing countries. If harnessed properly they will be crucial for country's growth and economic development. More youth means better income and higher saving rates which will ultimately bring higher growth. The government has also proposed to open five All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the country and a Jai Prakash Narayan National Centre for Excellence in Humanities in Madhya Pradesh. The Minister also proposed setting up of a sports university in the country. In an attempt to harness demographic dividend and providing them employment opportunity, FDI has been cleared in Defence and insurance sector. Earlier, it was 26 per cent in both the sectors but now it has been increased to 50 per cent.

Education: A comparison of Budget 2013 and Budget 2014
Elementary education also got a big push in the maiden Budget. Describing it as one of big priority for Government, an allocation of Rs 28, 635 crore was given for the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) in comparison to allocation of Rs 27, 258 crore in Budget 2013-14. Another programme named the Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan (RMSA) was allocated Rs 4, 9, 66 crore in comparison to Rs 3, 983 crore allocated in the previous year. To equip teachers in a better way, an allocation of Rs 500 crore done for Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya New Teachers Training Programme in the Budget 2013-14.

Government has put up a visionary Budget which is really a laudable one but now bigger task is to implement all these schemes and programmes. In every Budget, tall promises are being made but that proves futile on ground reality. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi is at helm this time, hopefully things will definitely improve.