In a move that could bring a big relief to India’s top technical institutes, the IITs could soon get a Rs 25,000 cr aid its infrastructure. This amount of money will be provided to the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) under the Narendra Modi government’s ‘RISE’ initiative. According to Indian Express, this large sum of money will be provided to the institutes under the new funding model of the government- Revitalising Infrastructure and Systems in Education (RISE). Out of the total investment of Rs 1 lakh crore that was announced during Budget 2018, the 23 IITs will be given Rs 25,000 crore over 4 years for expansion and also for building new infrastructure. The total investment amount of Rs 1 lakh crore will be given to centrally-funded institutes (CFIs), including central universities, IITs, IIMs, NITs and IISERs.
The ‘RISE’ initiative was announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on February 1. While talking about it, Jaitley said that the scheme will be launched in the country with a total investment of Rs 1 lakh crore in the next four years. With this investment, the government plans to revitalise infrastructure and systems in Education by the year 2022.
The report stated that while the IITs will get a total of Rs 25,000 crore, the second large chunk of investment, i.e. Rs 20000 crore will be given to the central universities. It added that that National Institutes of Technology (NITs) can take a total of Rs 11,300 crore, while the Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) are entitled to get Ts 4500 crore for the news branches, whereas the five IISER will get Rs 5000 crore.
The report added sources saying that around Rs 9,000 crore will be available for building robust research ecosystems in addition to the amount which is already being given to the institutes.
The Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) is being established to fund the ‘RISE’ initiative. The details of this agency are currently being worked out.
