Union Budget: 10,000 additional medical seats, 6,500 more in IITs in edu push

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in the Union Budget 2025-26 plans for 6,500 new IIT seats, 10,000 medical seats, and AI education initiatives.

Published on: Feb 2, 2025, 08:12:06 IST

By Sanjay Maurya

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Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while presenting the Union Budget 2025-26 on Saturday, announced that the government will add 6,500 more seats at Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and 10,000 more medical seats next year to accommodate more students.

Additional infrastructure will be created in the five IITs started after 2014 to facilitate education for 6,500 more students. (HT Photo)

Sitharaman said the government will add engineering seats at IITs that started functioning after 2014 and expand hostel and infrastructural capacity of IIT Patna.

She said the government will establish five national Centres of Excellence (CoE) for skilling, a new CoE in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for education, and 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs at government schools along with broadband connectivity to all government secondary schools under BharatNet. Sitharaman earmarked ₹1,28,650.05 crore for the education ministry in the FY 2025-26, including ₹78,572.1 crore for the department of school education and literacy and ₹50,077.95 crore for department of higher education. “Total number of students in IITs in 2023 has increased by 100% from 65,000 to 1.35 lakh in the past 10 years. Additional infrastructure will be created in the five IITs started after 2014 to facilitate education for 6,500 more students,” she said.

The five IITs established by Centre after 2014 are Tirupati, Palakkad, Bhilai, Jammu, and Goa. The government in 2016 converted ISM Dhanbad into IIT (ISM) Dhanbad. In the next five years, 10,000 fellowships for technology research in IITs and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) will be provided, Sitharaman added. The government has also allocated ₹11,349 crore — 8.4% higher than the revised estimate of ₹10,467.13 crore in FY 2024-25. This apart, 110,000 UG and PG medical education seats in 10 years which is an increase of 130%.

Prateek Maheshwari, co-founder of coaching institute PhysicsWallah (PW) said the addition of medical seats over five years is a “crucial step in reducing medical student outflow to other countries” in absence of sufficient government medical seats.

“The fourth CoE in AI for education aims to revolutionise India’s educational system from pre-primary to professional and research levels. In line with the comprehensive implementation of the National Education Policy 2020, this transformative initiative will integrate AI-driven innovations to enhance teaching, assessment, and policymaking...” the ministry of education said in a statement. Sitharaman announced the establishment of a new CoE in AI for education with a total outlay of ₹500 crore.

Somak Raychaudhury, vice-chancellor, Ashoka University, termed the budget a “progressive one prioritising skill development, AI literacy, and research.” “By collaborating with top higher education institutions, these centres will foster interdisciplinary synergies, enhancing AI and technical expertise among Indian youth, boosting employability, and advancing India as a global education and AI hub,” he said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sanjay Maurya
Sanjay Maurya is a Principal Correspondent with Hindustan Times, where he covers education, with a focus on school and higher education, competitive examinations, education policy and governance. Working as part of the National Bureau, he is based in New Delhi and reports on the Ministry of Education and covers various statutory bodies like UGC, AICTE and NCTE and autonomous bodies like CBSE and NCERT. His reporting also tracks the implementation of key government reforms and policies from school education to higher education including in IITs, NITs, IIMs, central and state universities, and their impact on students and educational institutions. His reporting on the irregularities and rushed implementation of CBSE's On-Screen Marking (OSM) system for evaluation of Class 12 board exams 2026, triggered administrative action, leading to the transfer of the board's two senior-most officials and the constitution of a committee to probe alleged irregularities in procurement process of the system. He joined Hindustan Times in December 2024. Prior to that, he had a three-year stint at Careers360, where he reported on school and higher education, entrance examinations, admissions, rankings and various education policies involving universities and professional education bodies. Over the years, Maurya has reported extensively on major developments in India's education sector, including the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, reforms in the National Testing Agency (NTA) following the NEET-UG 2024 controversy, changes in school education, higher education regulation, and the evolution of entrance examinations such as NEET, JEE and CUET. He regularly produces data-driven and explanatory stories based on government documents, parliamentary proceedings, court records and official data. His focus remains on helping readers understand how education policies and institutional decisions affect millions of students, teachers and educational institutions across the country.Read More

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