Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur on Friday presented a budget of 51365 crores for the financial year 2022-23. A provision of Rs 8 thousand 412 crore has been made for the education sector in 2022-23. Many announcements have been made for the students in the budget. It was announced to implement a 6-point action plan to enhance the quality of education. Under the National Policy on Education, pre-primary education classes for children in the age group of 3 to 6 years have been started in government primary schools in a phased manner. These will be further expanded.
Real time online teaching through mixed mode will be started in all government secondary, higher and senior secondary schools. This will benefit about 6 lakh students. Ranking will be done in all the schools of the state on the basis of performance under a new Shrestha Shiksha Quality Promotion Scheme and cash prizes will be given to the top three schools. Under the same scheme, three top schools of each district will also be given cash prizes.
Under Swarna Jayanti Gyanodaya Cluster Shrestha Vidyalaya Scheme, 100 new Government Primary Schools, 68 new Senior Secondary Schools under Swarna Jayanti Utkrisht Vidyalaya Yojana and 10 new Government Colleges under Swarna Jayanti Excellence College Scheme will be included in 2022-23. 54 crore will be spent on these three schemes. Maharishi Valmiki Scholarship Scheme, Indira Gandhi Excellent Scholarship Scheme, Kalpana Chawla Scholarship Scheme, Swami Vivekananda Excellent Scholarship Scheme in which there is a provision of Rs 700 to Rs 1250. It will be increased to Rs 1500 per month.
An announcement has been made to increase the scholarship to the children of martyrs and disabled soldiers of the Armed Forces to Rs. From the year 1983, this scholarship did not increase and there was a provision of only Rs.30 to Rs.200 per month. The name of IRDP Scholarship Scheme will now be Mukhyamantri Vidyarthi Kalyan Yojana. Now the students will be given Rs.300 to Rs.1500 per annum and for girl students from Rs.600 to Rs.2000 per annum. The students studying in colleges will be given Rs. 1200 to Rs. 5 thousand per annum and for students residing in hostels from Rs. 2400 to Rs. 6 thousand per annum.
A new Bal Pratibha Scholarship Scheme will start for 50 meritorious students of class III. On the basis of merit, a scholarship of Rs 3000 per annum will be provided till class 4th and 5th. 30 thousand students will be benefited from these schemes. An additional expenditure of Rs 15 crore will be made on all these schemes. Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur said in the budget speech that there are many students doing research in government universities who do not get any fellowship from any source. A new Chief Minister Research Promotion Scheme will be started from 2022-23 keeping in mind that financial reasons should not hinder such students from doing research work. Under this scheme, a fellowship of Rs 3,000 per month will be given to the research scholar for the first three years of research from the date of registration.