The Union government is likely to halt the disbursal of funds under its flagship Samagra Shiksha Scheme for the current financial year to five states and one Union Territory, all administered by parties that are not part of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s NDA , that are yet to sign Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with it adopt the Pradhan Mantri Schools For Rising India (PM-SHRI) scheme, senior government officials said on Wednesday.
So far, 30 states and Union territories (UTs) have signed MoUs with the union ministry of education for the PM SHRI programme, which targets to upgrade 14,500 schools benefitting 1.8 million students, and ensuring that these schools serve as model institutes and encapsulate the spirit of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. The government has already selected 6448 schools from 28 states and UTs for the upgrade in the first round.
According to senior government officials, despite several requests from the ministry to the states and UTs of Delhi, West Bengal, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Kerala, urging them to adopt the scheme, there has been reluctance on their part.
While five of these states have not signed the MoUs yet, Punjab has stopped the implementation of the PM SHRI scheme after initially signing the MoU, said a senior government official, asking not to be named.
“Despite taking funds from the Centre for Samagra Shiksha Scheme, the refusal of the five to sign MoUs for PM SHRI schools, reflects a troubling pattern. It is a clear politicization move by the States/UTs, where they accept funds under Samagra Shiksha but resist signing an MoU for PM SHRI,” added the official.
{{/usCountry}}“Despite taking funds from the Centre for Samagra Shiksha Scheme, the refusal of the five to sign MoUs for PM SHRI schools, reflects a troubling pattern. It is a clear politicization move by the States/UTs, where they accept funds under Samagra Shiksha but resist signing an MoU for PM SHRI,” added the official.
{{/usCountry}}The Samagra Shiksha Scheme or Abhiyaan is the largest central government scheme for universal school education .
“PM SHRI schools, to showcase all initiatives of NEP-2020, will work as exemplar schools for neighbouring cluster schools as well. Therefore, the Centre is going to halt the remaining funding by the Centre under the Samagra Shiksha scheme for these states for the financial year 2023-24,” the official added.
The fund sharing pattern for the scheme between Centre and States is 60:40 for all states and Union Territories with legislatures except for the North-Eastern states where the Centre contributes 90% of the total funds.
According to the government records, the remaining funds for West Bengal under the scheme for the current financial year is ₹1,273 crore, Tamil Nadu , ₹1,045 crore, Kerala, ₹168 crore , Punjab, ₹370 crore, and Delhi, ₹190 crore. The details for Odisha were not available.
Trinamool Congress (TMC) MP Santanu Sen, said, “The Center has already frozen funds under various schemes to West Bengal. The amount is around ₹1.6 lakh crore. The Centre wants to break the federal structure by creating financial blockades to all non-BJP states. They fear Bengal the most and hence the level of vindictiveness is all the more against the state.”
In 2022, the Centre withheld funds to West Bengal including the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS). In February, a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India alleged that the TMC-government in West Bengal didn’t submit utilization certificates of ₹2.29 lakh crores against allocations made under different schemes by the Centre.
Meanwhile, officials in Odisha and Punjab said that they are yet to receive a communication from the Centre regarding this. “I can’t comment unless there is a communication from Centre,” said the secretary Odisha school and mass education secretary Aswathy S.
Punjab school education minister Harjot Singh Bains said there is no issue of funds being cut so far.
(With inputs from state correspondents)