The union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed various development measures for nurturing innovation while presenting the budget 2025 in the Parliament on Saturday.
She announced to set up Fifty thousand Atal Tinkering Labs in government schools in the next five years to cultivate the spirit of curiosity and innovation, and foster a scientific temper among young minds.
The minister also proposes to provide broadband connectivity to all government secondary schools and primary health centres in rural areas under the Bharatnet project.
On higher education, she stated that the total number of students in 23 IITs has increased 100 percent from 65,000 to 1.35 lakh in the past 10 years. “Additional infrastructure will be created in the 5 IITs started after 2014 to facilitate education for 6,500 more students. Hostel and other infrastructure capacity at IIT, Patna will also be expanded,” she said.
Sitharaman has proposed to implement a Bharatiya Bhasha Pustak Scheme to provide digital-form Indian language books for school and higher education.
“I had announced three Centres of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence for agriculture, health, and sustainable cities in 2023. Now a Centre of Excellence in Artificial Intelligence for education will be set up with a total outlay of INR 500 crore,” the minister said.
She also announced to allocate INR 20,000 crore to implement private sector driven Research, Development and Innovation. In the next five years, under the PM Research Fellowship scheme, provision of ten thousand fellowships for technological research in IITs and IISc with enhanced financial support is also proposed in the Budget.
Jairaj Bhattacharya, Co-Founder & CEO, ConveGenius.AI said the budget 2025 marks a defining moment for India’s education landscape, with a strong push towards AI-driven learning, skilling, and digital accessibility.
“The INR 500 crore Centre of Excellence for AI in Education will accelerate innovation while expanding Atal Tinkering Labs and broadband in schools will help bridge digital divides at scale,” he said.
Ankit Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Unstop said that the Union Budget 2025’s strong push for skilling, innovation, and employment-led development is a welcome move for India’s young workforce. “There is a huge scope for freshers and early-career professionals to equip themselves with industry-ready capabilities with the establishment of five National Centres of Excellence for skilling and global skilling partnerships. This is a big win for the freshers who have packages less than INR 12 Lakh, as now they’ll not have to give any tax and can focus on long term savings from the beginning,” he added.
