National Digital Library For Children And Adolescents Will Be Set Up: Finance Minister

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today announced in her Budget speech that a National Digital Library for children and adolescents will be set up for facilitating the availability of quality books. The digital library will provide quality books across geographies, languages, genres, and levels, and device-agnostic accessibility, Ms Sitharaman said as she presented her fifth straight Budget today.

"States will be encouraged to set up physical libraries for them at panchayat and ward levels and provide infrastructure for accessing the National Digital Library resources," she said.

Ms Sitharaman made several announcements for the education sector in her 87-minute Budget speech. These include three centres of excellence for artificial intelligence in top educational institutions, 100 labs in engineering institutions for developing applications using 5G services and recruitment of 38,000 teachers and support staff in the next three years for 740 Eklavya Model Residential Schools.

The Budget for 2023-24 is Ms Sitharaman's fifth straight Budget.

She was appointed as the finance minister when Prime Minister Narendra Modi swept to power again in the 2019 election and presented her maiden Budget on July 5, 2019.

This year's Budget holds much significance as the country is scheduled to have the next Lok Sabha election in April-May 2024.