New Delhi, 01 February 2018: Mr Arun Jaitley, Union Finance Minister, has presented Union Budget 2018-19 today (01 February 2018). There are major announcements and allocation for boosting higher education.

The most prominent is that the Government would launch the ‘‘Prime Minister’s Research Fellows (PMRF)’’ Scheme this year. Under this fellowship scheme, 1,000 best BTech students each year from premier institutions will be identified and they will be provided facilities to do PhD in IITs and IISc, with a handsome fellowship.

It is expected that these bright young fellows would voluntarily commit few hours every week for teaching in higher educational institutions.

The government will set up two new full-fledged Schools of Planning and Architecture, to be selected on challenge mode. Additionally, 18 new SPAs would be established in the IITs and NITs as autonomous Schools, also on challenge mode.

The Union Finance Minister informed that the government has taken major initiative of setting up Institutes of Eminence. There has been tremendous response to this initiative by institutions both in public and private sectors. The government has received more than 100 applications. We have also taken steps to set up a specialized Railways University at Vadodara.

To step up investments in research and related infrastructure in premier educational institutions, including health institutions, the Budget proposes to launch a major initiative named ‘‘Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE) by 2022’’ with a total investment of Rs 1,00,000 crore in next four years. Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) would be suitably structured for funding this initiative.