No, not really. They went crazy, but that's because while delivering her shortest budget speech, Union Finance Minister Nirmal Sitharaman skipped making any major allotments to the education and health sector on February 1. While there were some programmes and initiatives that were announced, her speech had no mention of the actual amount being allotted. You have to look at the budget documents if you need to find out the allocations.
Netizens took to Twitter to express their frustration when no major announcements or allotments were made for the education sector. "Digital Rupee: Digital shift- How about providing Digital food to millions of citizenry who are unable to provide two square meals a day? No numbers for education, health, welfare schemes," said one user while others shared memes on the lack of announcements by the Finance Minister.
But a quick dip into the budget documents reveals that estimates for 2021-22 for health are Rs 74,602 crores while in the revised estimates it shot up to Rs 85,915 crores. While this time there has been an increase, it is marginal — Rs 86,606 crores. For education too, there has been an increase. Rs 1,04,278 crores has been allotted for education. It's higher than the last year's allotment and the revised estimate. The allotment was Rs 93,224 crore while only Rs 88,002 crores was the revised estimate.
FM Sitharaman began her budget speech this year by expressing empathy to those who suffered during the pandemic but assured that India is on a revival path and the country's growth is estimated to be at 9.2 per cent, the highest among all large economies claimed the Finance Minister.
