India, Feb. 1 -- Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman's announcement on Saturday to set up five centres of excellence (CoE) for skilling, a new CoE in Artificial Intelligence (AI) for education and 50,000 Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs) in government schools were an effort to bridge the skill gap, experts said.

In the Union Budget presented in Parliament, Sitharaman earmarked Rs.1,28,650.05 crore for the education ministry in 2025-26 including Rs.78,572.1 crore for the department of school education and literacy and Rs.50077.95 crore for department of higher education.

The allocation for the Prime Minister Research Fellowship (PMRF) scheme launched in 2018 saw a massive 112.4% increase to Rs.600 crore for 2025-26, up from revised estimates of...