Interim Budget 2024: NEP 2020 ushering transformational change says FM Sitharaman 

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Interim Budget from 11 a.m. today, February 1. As a comprehensive budget can only be presented after the Lok Sabha elections 2024, when a new government is formed, this budget will only discuss the government’s plans for the remaining part of its term. 

This is Union Budget No. 6 for Nirmala Sitharaman. Following the elections, the newly elected government will present the complete budget. The short-term financial plan, known as the interim budget, requests approval from Parliament in order to obtain funding ahead of schedule for the government’s necessary spending for the first four months of the upcoming fiscal year. 

Yesterday marked the start of the Budget Session of Parliament, with President Droupadi Murmu presiding over a joint Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha meeting. On February 9, the session will come to an end.

FM Nirmala Sitharaman, the Union Minister of Finance, starts her speech on the Union Interim Budget 2024. She claimed that during the previous ten years, there has been an increase in women enrolled in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses and higher education institutions. Skill India has trained 1.8 crore youths, upskilled and re-skilled 54 lakh youths and established 3,000 new ITIs. 

 Key Pointers During the Interim Budeg 2024: 

• As per Budget 2023, under PM Schools for Rising India or PM Shri, 14500 schools are expected to be upgraded to showcase components of the new National Education Policy 2020.

• PM Shri Schools which were announced in 2022’s budget speech, but were not allocated any money, have been given Rs 4,000 crore this year. 

• ‘The National Education Policy 2020 is ushering transformational reforms in schools for rising India. It is delivering quality teaching and nurturing, holistic and well-rounded individuals scaling their mission to one point,’ Sitharaman said in the Parliament.

• The present government has set up 7 new IITs, 16 IIITs, 7 IIMs, 15 AIIMS and 390 new universities have been set up, Nirmala Sitharaman stated.

• In 2023, the University Grants Commission was allocated Rs 5,350 crore versus the budget allocation of Rs 4,900 crore. 

• More medical colleges to be set up soon, the Finance Minister says. “Our government plans to set up more medical colleges by utilizing the existing hospital infrastructure,” Sitharaman said.

• The female enrollment in higher education has gone up by 28 per cent in 10 years of STEM courses. The Finance Minister stated that these measures are reflected in the increasing participation of women in the workforce.