The government has envisaged to support around 1,600 projects under the new phase of RUSA (representational)
The Central Government has approved continuation of the Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) scheme till March 31, 2026 or till further review.
RUSA is a centrally sponsored scheme for funding state government universities and colleges to achieve equity, access and excellence.
The government has envisaged to support around 1,600 projects under the new phase of the scheme.
The expenditure of the scheme will be Rs 12,929.16 crore, of which the central share will be Rs 8,120.97 crore and the state share will be Rs 4,808.19 crore.
The new phase of RUSA aims to reach out the unserved, underserved areas; remote and rural areas; difficult geographies; LWE (left wing extremism) areas; NER (North East region); aspirational districts, tier-2 cities, areas with low Gross enrolment ratio (GER), etc.
The new phase has been designed to implement some of the recommendations of the National Education Policy (NEP), which suggests key changes to the current higher education system for delivering quality higher education with equity and inclusion, the Education Ministry said.
Under the new phase of RUSA, state governments will be supported for gender inclusion, equity initiatives, ICT, enhancing employability through vocationalisation and skill upgradation, it said.
States will also receive support for creating new model degree colleges, multidisciplinary education and research at universities, strengthening colleges and universities for undertaking activities like teaching-learning in Indian languages, it added.