Union Budget 2011: Govt ups education allocation by 24%

KOLKATA: The education sector has got its share of goodies this Budget. Education allocation has been proposed to be raised by 24% over last year to Rs 52,057 crore, of which Rs 21,000 crore will be towards the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, a 40% increase over last year.

The FM has also proposed to provide special grants to recognise excellence in universities and academic institutions including Rs 200 crore for IIT Kharagpur; Rs 50 crore each to upcoming centres of Aligarh Muslim University at Murshidabad in West Bengal and Malappuram in Kerala; and Rs 20 crore for IIM Calcutta for its finance research and training lab, among others.

IIMC finance professor Dr BB Chakraborty said: "We had asked the FM for this corpus to upgrade the facilities at our finance lab. This money will go towards higher levels of research, market-oriented research and development programmes."