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| - Fact Check: Centre did cut down Aligarh Muslim University funds, but not to the extent being claimed
A viral social media post has claimed that the Centre has cut down the funds allocated to Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) drastically. Read on to find more.
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India Today Fact Check
The annual budget of AMU has been reduced in the fiscal year 2021-22 compared to 2020-21. However, the figures in the claim are baseless.
Is the Modi government cutting down funds allocated to Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) drastically? A social media post that has gone viral claims so. It alleges that AMU's annual budget has come down to Rs 9 crore from Rs 62 crore, an almost seven-fold decrease.
The post in Hindi roughly translates to, "We are thankful for Narendra Modi's decision to cut down Aligarh Muslim University's annual budget to 9 crore, from 62 crore."
Archived versions of such posts can be seen here.
An AFWA investigation found that there has indeed been a dip in AMU's budget allocation. However, the numbers doing rounds on social media are far from the real figures.
AFWA PROBE
Running a keyword search, we found a news report by ABP Live that confirmed a reduction in funds allotted to 5 central universities, including AMU. A report by The Wire on July 19 mentioned that there has been a 15 per cent dip in the funding for universities like Aligarh and Jamia Millia Islamia.
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On the other hand, the fund allocated for Banaras Hindu University during the same period almost doubled. Per the report, the Ministry of Education gave these stats in Lok Sabha in response to an unstarred question on Monday, July 18.
TN Prathapan, Congress MP from Kerala, asked for the details of funds allocated to five central universities Jawaharlal Nehru University, Jamia Millia Islamia, Aligarh Muslim University, Rajiv Gandhi University and Banaras Hindu University. It was Minister of State for Education Subhas Sarkar that answered the queries.
Subsequent searches on the Lok Sabha website led us to the official documents produced in the Parliament while answering Congress MP's question. The response from the education ministry carried a detailed history of the funds allocated to central universities by the Government of India from 2014-15.
The reply clarifies that AMU's annual budget increased each year from 2014-15 when it was Rs 673.98 crore. The funding peaked in 2020-21 when a sum of Rs 1520.10 crore was approved. However, there was a dip in the allocation in 2021-22, when the annual budget was reduced to Rs 1214.63 crore -- a shortfall of nearly Rs 306 crore compared to the previous year.
The reply also mentioned that in the current fiscal year, the allocation for AMU in the first quarter was Rs 302.32 crore. Per a report by Jagran, the teachers' body also held meetings to discuss the situation before formulating their response to the cut.
This confirms that the figures doing rounds on social media about AMU fund cuts are baseless.
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