Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 announced Rs 1. 20 lakh crore as expenditure on education in the Interim Budget 2024-25. This is Rs 9,091 crore less than the revised estimate for 2023-24 and translates to a nearly 7.26 percent decline compared with the previous revised estimates of Rs 1,29,718 crore. Allocation for school education has increased by a meagre 0.7 percent.