Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is presenting the Union Budget 2023-24 on the second day of the budget session of Parliament in New Delhi on Wednesday. | Photo credit: ANI
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman proposed a national digital library to strengthen the National Book Trust for children and adolescents as well as provide physical libraries with non-curricular titles in regional languages and English to create a culture of reading. could For learning disabilities during pandemics.
“A National Digital Library for Children and Adolescents Availability of quality books across geographies, languages, genres and levels and tools will be established to facilitate scholarly access. States will be encouraged to set up physical libraries at the panchayat and ward levels and provide infrastructure for them to access the resources of the National Digital Library,” Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech.
The minister also talked about collaborating with NGOs working to promote literacy to achieve these goals.
Financial sector regulators and organizations will be encouraged to provide libraries with age-appropriate reading materials, promoting financial literacy.
As for the budgetary allocation for the Ministry of Education, there has been an overall increase of 13 per cent over the revised estimates of Rs 112,898 crore for the previous financial year. School education has seen an increase of 16.5 percent, for which a total of Rs 68,804 crore has been allocated. Additional funds have been earmarked for the recently announced PM SHRI (Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India) school initiative, which has received ₹ 4,000 crore. The allocation for Samara Shiksha has increased from ₹32,151 crore to ₹37,453 crore.
Higher education has received an increase of 7.9% over the last fiscal year’s revised estimates with a total allocation of Rs 44,094 crore.
