Government Financing through Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) for Capacity Building in Higher Education Institutions: A Study in Assam

Abstract

Capacity building in higher education would imply sustainable social, political and economic development of the society. With the rapid expansion of higher education institution all over the country, the important role played by the State higher education cannot be understated. Hence, there is a need to empower the State Higher education Sector. But the system of higher education suffers from many shortcomings one of the reason for such shortcomings is that it lacks proper funding. Against this backdrop a study has been designed to understand the process of fund flow as well as the financing strategy of one of the major financing scheme of the Central Government viz Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) which was given birth by the Ministry of Human Resource Development in 2013 for providing strategic funding to eligible state higher educational institutions. The study also aims to know the degree of implementation of the planned policies and programs of RUSA in select colleges of Assam. The research is done through details study of primary data collected from interview with the personnel involved in utilization of such fund of Select colleges and secondary data collected from various blogs, newspapers, publications and websites etc. The proposed study will help significantly to find out a solution to the problems faced by the Higher education institution in availing and utilizing such fund since empowerment of Higher education would require adequate funding by the Government.