India improves for ITI, for new IITs, 11,800 -crores

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved two major initiatives: A 60,000-crores-crores scheme to upgrade Industrial Training Institutes (ITI) and five recently established Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) one of 11,828.79-crores expansion scheme.

The decisions taken in a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi are to make skills to the youth of India and expand access to elite engineering education as the country moves towards its 2047 development goals.

The national plan for upgradation and skilling ITI will convert 1,000 government-run ITIs into a hub-end-spoke model “government-owned, industry-managed asphalt institutions”. It also includes the establishment of five national centers for skilling at the National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIS) in Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kanpur and Ludhiana.

With the aim of bridging the long gaps between training and industry demands, the scheme is designed to create skills for 20 lakh youth in five years, focusing on high-development areas such as electronics, automotive and renewable energy.

The ₹ 60,000-crores injury will be shared between the center (₹ 30,000 crore), states (₹ 20,000 crore), and industry (₹ 10,000 crore), with 50% central share uniformly equal to equally co-owned by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. The scheme introduces a special objective vehicle (SPV) model to ensure intensive industry participation and result-driven implementation, first, to mark the departure from less impressive schemes.

This initiative promises to upgrade infrastructure in trainer education, especially by enabling pre-service and in-service training for 50,000 trainers. This is definitely expected to solve systemic challenges in relevance, employment and perception around vocational education.

IIT expansion to add 6,500 seats

In a parallel push to strengthen India’s higher education infrastructure, the cabinet also approved the funds for the construction of five new IITS- Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh), Palakkad (Kerala), Bhilai (Chhattisgarh), Jammu (Jammu and Kashmir), and five new IITs of Dharvad (Karnataka).

With a joint cost of ₹ 11,828.79 crore in four years (2025–26 to 2028-29), the consumption of the student in detail will increase from 7,111 to 13,687, undergraduate, postgraduate, and 6,576 seats in PhD programs. An additional 130 faculty posts will be created at the professor level, as well as the development of five state-of-the-art research parks as well as to promote strong industry-academia linkage.

This step aligns with the announcement of budget 2025-26, stating that the total power of the total student across 23 IITs in India has increased from 65,000 to 1.35 lakhs in the last decade. Five new IITs -selection -now will get their first important infrastructure boost from their permanent complexes since 2015-17.