The University Grants Commission (UGC) will face drastic funds cut as the government wants to reduce the regulator’s authority to deal with grants for
public universities.

The budget for 2024-25 reduced the allocation to UGC to ₹2,500 crore from ₹5,360 crore in 2023-24. The UGC, among other things, has been providing grants to central universities for various expenses and to state universities for infrastructure.

The commission also implements certain fellowship schemes, including the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF), under which it provides allowances to research scholars.

A government official said that the education ministry had started taking over the release of salaries and pensions for employees of the central universities. Now, other grants, too, would be released by the ministry. The UGC would not deal with grants for the central universities.

Several academics expressed apprehensions about the possibility of denial of grants to the state universities since the ministry does not deal with state universities directly. They also feared a reduction in scholarship and fellowship scheme beneficiaries.

The allocation for higher education was ₹44,095 crore in the budgetary estimate in 2023-24. In the revised estimate for 2023-24, the allocation increased to ₹57,244 crore. The allocation for 2024-25 is ₹47,620 crore, which is a marginal increase over last year’s budgetary estimate and about ₹9,600 crore less than last year’s revised estimate.

For school education, ₹73,008 crore has been allocated, up from the budgetary estimate of ₹68,805 crore last year and ₹72,474 in the revised estimate.

Rajesh Jha, a faculty member of Rajdhani College under Delhi University, said the UGC used to be an academic body with the potential to deal with institutions better but the ministry comprising ministers and bureaucrats is unlikely to understand the academic and functional difficulties in institutions well.

“This budget is announcing from the top that the UGC will cease to be the grant-making body and will be replaced by the regulatory body,” he said.

The budget has allocated ₹1,800 crore for the World Class Institutions scheme under which 10 public-funded institutions are being given heavy funds to achieve excellence globally. Jha said such a huge allocation to select 10 institutions is not justified when other institutions are struggling with funds for their routine expenditure.

“The clear signal is that the government is moving towards private-player-driven education with the scope for public-private partnership and expansion of online education with no regard at all to quality and inclusiveness of higher education,” he said.

Jha said the UGC had shut down several fellowship schemes in the last six years for lack of funds. It will either close or reduce beneficiaries with the reduction of funds, he said.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a new education loan scheme for loans up to ₹10 lakh for higher education in domestic institutions. E-vouchers for this purpose will be given directly to one lakh students every year for annual interest subvention of 3 per cent of the loan amount, she said.

Jha said fees in professional courses like engineering or medicine at a standard private institution are much higher than ₹10 lakh. Students will suffer by taking this loan and studying in sub-standard institutions, he said.