Interim Budget may slash education, health outlays

With the government focusing on ways to battle slowdown by providing stimulus to the industry, some of the sectors like the higher education and the health are likely to be pushed to the back-burner in the interim Budget to be presented in the Lok Sabha tomorrow.Ahead of the general elections, UPA government's interim Budget is likely to provide more focus on sectors like rural development and infrastructure facilities like roads and ports.According to indications, the allocations for the health and the education sectors are likely to be retained at the 2008-09 levels in the next fiscal.In the Budget for 2008-09, the government had increased the outlay for the health and the education by 15 per cent to Rs 15,580 crore and 20 per cent to Rs 34,400 crore respectively.While the allocation for these two sectors are likely to remain unchanged, the outlay for IITs is expected to be curtailed from Rs 1,171 crore during 2008-09 to about Rs 800 crore in the next fiscal.The outlay for the flagship programmes of the UPA government, which include the Bharat Nirman, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, is likely to increase by Rs 33,000 crore to Rs 1,23,000 in the interim Budget.