Government spending on a key scheme to improve the standards of state government-funded universities and colleges and also on research programmes has witnessed a precipitous decline in recent years, according to data placed before Parliament on Wednesday.
The actual expenditure under the Rashtriya Uchhatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), a scheme to support state-level institutions, declined from Rs 1,277.82 crore in 2019-20 to Rs 165.2 crore in 2020-21, an 87 per cent drop.
The expenditure on the scheme was Rs 1,393 crore, Rs 1,245.97 crore and Rs 1,126.9 crore in 2018-19, 2017-18 and 2016-17, respectively, minister of state for education Subhas Sarkar said in a written reply to a question from Trinamul Congress MP Jawhar Sircar in the Rajya Sabha.
One of the components of the scheme is to fund libraries at educational institutions. An official of a government college in Bihar said the institution had been waiting for grants under RUSA for three years to purchase books.
“After the college adopted the choice-based credit system, many books went out of syllabus. New books are required. The new books will be bought only after getting grants under RUSA. We are waiting for funds,” the official said. The credit system allows students to choose inter-disciplinary pass subjects.
The data submitted by the Centre in Parliament show that grants under minor and major research project schemes of the University Grants Commission have also come down gradually from Rs 42.7 crore in 2016-17 to Rs 38 lakh in 2020-21.
To a separate question by CPM Rajya Sabha member V. Sivadasan, the government furnished data that revealed that funding for several fellowship and scholarship schemes of the UGC has decreased.
The number of Emeritus Fellowships granted by the UGC has dwindled from 559 in 2017-18 to 14 in 2020-21. The number of Dr S. Radhakrishnan Post Doctoral Fellowship in Humanities reduced from 434 to 200 during the same period. The Maulana Azad National Fellowship for Minority Students was given to 2,348 students in 2020-21, down from 4,141 in 2016-17.
