Government has proposed to hike the overall plan budget for higher education for the next fiscal by INR 2,000 crore. This was announced by the Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee while presenting the Budget in Parliament. Taking forward the government's intent of having one Central university in each of the uncovered state, an amount of INR 827 crore has been allocated in the Budget for the purpose. IITs and NITs have been allocated INR 2,113 crore which includes a provision of INR 450 crore for new institutes. Eight new Indian Institutes of Technology have been approved, six of which, namely, IITs at Hyderabad, Bhubaneshwar, Gandhinagar, Patna and IITs for Rajasthan and Punjab have commenced their academic sessions from the year 2008-09. Remaining two IITs at Indore (Madhya Pradesh) and Mandi (Himachal Pradesh) are likely to commence the academic programmes from 2009-2010.
