The Telangana education sector witnessed an increase of 11.51% in the state budget allocation for the financial year 2024-25. The education sector received Rs 21, 292 crore, an increase of Rs 2199 crore from 2023-24 budget which allotted Rs 19,093 crores for education.
In the budget speech, Telangana Finance and Deputy Chief Minister Bhatti Vikramarka on Thursday, July 25, said that Rs 500 crore has been set aside for the infrastructure development of state run universities of which, Rs 100 crore each is proposed for Osmania university and Telangana Women's University. The remaining Rs 300 crore is proposed to improve infrastructure facilities of Kakatiya University in Warangal and other state run universities.
The Congress led state government entered into an agreement with Tata Technologies Limited to transform 65 government Industrial training institutes into ‘centres of excellence.’ The project, launched by Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy in June costs Rs 2324.2 crore. From the 2024-25 budget, the state government will spend Rs 307.95 crore. The remainder of the Rs 2324.2 crores will be borne by the TATA group as the project is being carried out under a public private partnership model.
In the Assembly on Wednesday, Telangana IT minister Sridhar Babu criticised the Union Budget 2024-25 among other things for not allotting an Indian Institute of Management (IIMs) to Telangana. “While Andhra got heavy support, we did not receive funding for even Navodaya or Kendriya Vidyala schools,” he said.
The increased allocation for education in Telangana is noteworthy also because the previous Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) led state government was constantly pulled up for not spending enough on education. Since the formation of Telangana in 2014, budgeting for education took a hit. In 2014-15, 10.89% of the budget was spent on education and at the end of BRS’ 10 year governance, spending was cut to a mere 6.57% in 2023-24.