With all the hype after the Union Budget of 2009 the question that flashed into my mind was..where do we students stand? Did we gain anything or is the budget bad for us in some way or the other? I decided that I really needed to know this, and so fished out the speech of our Honorable Finance Minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee that he delivered while announcing the budget of this year.I know nothing much about Economics (yeah I studied Economics in my XIIth Std, but comeon) and so most of the terms like Fiscal Deficit and MAT etc. were way above my domain of understanding. But I did succeed in finding some things that are surely going to affect the student community.
Well the major things that I came across are :
- Friends ( I mean students of course) from the economically weaker section of the society will be able to get student loans “with a full interest subsidy during the period of moratorium“. This will cover the loans from Scheduled banks to pursue the approved courses in technical and professional streams. Now that is a good one !
- The study loans taken or pursuing higher education in all fields of study, including the vocational studies pursued after schooling will be deductable in respect of interest on the loans with the amendment of the Section 80-E of the Income Tax Act.
- This time the government has raised the amount allocated to ‘Mission in Education through ICT‘ to around 900 crore rupees. If this amount is used properly (i.e. without the officers in-charge thinking of filling in their coffers) this sure will lead to good education for the Indian youth who form quite a percentage of the totality of us.
- The government has also allotted Rs. 495 crore for the setting up and up-gradation of Polytechnics throughout the nation. Moreover Rs. 827 crore has also been set aside for the establishment of Central Universities in each of the states that don’t have one till now.
- Rs. 2113 crores have been allotted for the IITs (after all they are the pride of our country !!) and NITs which includes the 450 crores for the establishment of new IITs and NITs. Overall the planned expenditure on higher education has been proposed to be raised by Rs. 2000 crore (whoops!!).
- Pranab Mukherjee, happy with IGNOU(Indira Gandhi National Open University) has allocated Rs. 50 crore to it. In the words of the minister ” IGNOU which has been the forefront of distance education , has been provided with an allocation of Rs. 900 million that also includes Rs. 400 million for grants to the state open universities”. Well atleast we can expect a little better course material and contacts programme from the IGNOU now that they have the cash that they needed (or wanted!!) .
- Now since the mobile phones have become almost a necessity for the students these days, government’s decision to fully exempt accessories, parts and components imported for the manufacture of mobile phones from CVD of 4% is sure going to make the mobile phones cheaper than what they are at the present. Thats good news isn’t it?
- Talking of students, how can we forget paper and other paper related articles. Yes they are going to cheaper too after the decision of reducing the excise duty to 4% from 8% on such items! Keep on writing and studying brothers!!
- If there isn’t enough light around how will you study? Governemt has also reduced the excise duty from cheaper electric bulbs and CFLs…now no excuses.
- I know many will be thinking there must be electricity to light the bulbs and CFLs which sadly India lacks on by a huge margin. There is a huge disparity between the amount of power demand the amount supplies. Pranab Da has increased the allocation of funds for the Accelerated Power Develeopment and Reform Programme (APDRP) to Rs. 2080 crore (the hike is a whopping 160%). If this money is utilized well then surely our power problems will lessen, i.e. we wont have to face the frequent power cuts (which curiously rise in frequency during the week before the exams!) that the whole country faces.
- Yes many of the students of today are en-route of getting employed. But at this time of Global Economic Recession jobs are the most hard to find commodity. To help people get proper employment government has announce the establishment of Modern Employment Exchanges where the job seekers can register online and can approach any employment exchange. A national web portal with common software is being developed under this project that will contain all the data regarding the availability of skilled persons on the one hand and the requirements of skilled people by the industries, making the process of job seeking a bit less cumbersome.
- Obviously not every thing can be good always can it? The prices of toothpastes are going to rise after the budget of 2009. But oral hygeine is a must isn’t it? So nothing can be done…you have to cough up more money while colgate-ing or close-up-ing thats it.
The past few days I have been watching the debates over the budget of 2009. Well I got bored everytime I heard big words like Fiscal Deficit etc. (yeah one may refer to wikipedia for that I know) I know that is important, but for us students I guess these were the highlights of the Union Budget 2009!
The Vidyarthi 
