House panel backs Arjun on SSA funding

The HRD minister can now fight against his own Govt's decision to lower the Centre’s share in Sarva Siksha Abhiyan.

Updated on: Apr 28, 2007, 03:22:06 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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HRD Minister Arjun Singh has now the Parliament’s power to fight against his own government’s decision to lower the Centre’s share in Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA) from 75 per cent to 50 per cent.

The Public Accounts Committee headed by Vijay Kumar Malhotra of BJP on Friday went all out in the support of Singh saying modifying the funding pattern to 50:50 may "impair the programme that is already operating behind schedule." Under SSA, the government was to ensure eight years of elementary education to all children by 2010 but now the deadline has been revised to 2012 with many states not meeting the targets.

Meeting even the revised deadline may be difficult if the government insisted with 50: 50 funding pattern, the committee observed. "Inspite of 75:25 funding pattern many states were lagging behind in achieving the targets," it said, pointing that the states lagging behind are populous and not very financially sound to meet the additional burden.

The ministry informed the committee that the state governments would require Rs 7,500 crore more for the additional burden - a daunting task for most states. The committee felt the states might not be able to meet the matching share, preventing the centre from releasing further instalments. "Such a situation is bound to choke the scheme with serious repercussions," the committee stated.

In the committee, the ministry put a view quite contrary to that of the government. The ministry said the existing 75:25 funding ratio can be sustained with the funds available from the non-lapsable Prambhik Siksha Kosh, budgetary support and external funding.

However, the Planning Commission and Finance Ministry had stated that continuing with existing funding pattern will jeopardise the efforts to strengthen secondary education and states can provide additional funds from the Rs 47,000 crore surplus funds, they have.

Making a strong plea for reverting to 75:25 funding scheme, the committee said, the attainment of the goal of universal elementary education depends squarely on the populous but educationally backward states to achieve the targets stipulated under SSA.

"The government should not allow SSA to suffer on account of shortage of funds," the committee stated, while pointing out several lacunas in the present modules of the scheme.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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