Report by India Education bureau, New Delhi: The Draft Twelfth Five Year Plan builds on the momentum generated during the Eleventh Plan and continues the focus on the ‘Three Es’—expansion, equity and excellence. The Twelfth Plan adopts a holistic approach to the issues of expansion, equity and excellence so that expansion is not just about accommodating ever larger number of students, but is also about providing wider choices of subjects, levels and institutions while ensuring a minimum standard of academic quality and providing the opportunity to pursue higher education to all sections of society, particularly the disadvantaged. 

The total Plan allocation of the Department of Higher Education for the Twelfth Five Year Plan is Rs.1, 10,700 crore. In the first year of the Twelfth Plan i.e. Annual Plan 2012-13, an allocation of Rs.15,458 crore has been made for the Department of Higher Education, of which an amount of Rs.7974 crore has been spent so far. 

This information was given by the Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Dr. Shashi Tharoor in Lok Sabha on Wednesday.