Budget
2015-16 : STEAM (Science, Technology,
Engineering/Education, Agriculture
and Medicine)
1)
The budget announced recently by the government has only let the cloud
of gloom covering STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering/ Education,
Agriculture and Medicine) thicken.
2)
The government has increased the S&T budget by 4-7 per cent, one
that hardly meets the inflation rate.
3)
The budgetary increase was based on what STEAM ministries spent
last year up to December 2014 and not what they would have up to March 31, 2015.
4)
Science & Technology :
i.
The budget provides well for mission type programmes planned by the
Space and the Atomic Energy groups.
ii.
But the budgets of the Departments of Science & Technology,
Science and Engineering Research Board, Department of Biotechnology, Earth
Sciences and the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research the increase of
7 per cent hardly meets the inflation rate.
5)
Education
:
i.
The HRD ministry (MHRD) faces a 17 per cent cut.
ii.
Money for school education has been cut from Rs 55,155 crores to Rs
42,210, a drop of Rs 13,000 crores.
iii.
In higher education, the money allotted is already down by Rs 3900
crores, and much of the MHRD budget will go to the newly born dozens of
‘central universities’, IITs and IIMs.
6)
Agriculture :
i.
Agriculture loses its budget by Rs 2,800 crores, from Rs 19,852
crores last year to 17,004 this year.
ii.
Its research arm, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research
(ICAR) loses 25 crores this year.
7)
Medicine
:
i.
The Health Ministry’s budget has been cut by 20 per cent.
ii.
The money for the HIV programme has been cut by 30 per cent.
iii.
The child health programme (India has the maximum malnourished children
and nursing mothers) has also been downsized.
iv.
The research arm of the health ministry, Indian Council of Medical
Research (ICMR), sees its outlay poorer this year.
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