HRD ministry gets a setback on allocation for education

The HRD ministry's demand for 139 per cent increase in allocation for education has been rejected by the Govt, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Published on: Jan 16, 2007, 15:25:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The HRD ministry's demand for 139 per cent increase in allocation for education has been rejected by the government and instead, only 30 per cent increase has been envisaged.

For the first year of the 11th plan, 2006-07, the Planning Commission has decided to increase the allocation for education by only 30.2 per cent by increasing the overall budget from Rs 20,735 crore to Rs 27,099 crore.

But, the government's flagship programme Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, now being rechristened as National Siksha Abhiyan, will lose about Rs 3,200 crore --- from Rs 11,000 crore the allocation is being reduced to Rs 8,800 crore. "It is because the government has decided to reduce Centre's share from 75 per cent to 50 per cent as it is essential to create room for secondary education," a commission official explained.

The HRD ministry's proposal for higher allocation for SSA and the midday meal scheme has not found favour with the commission. The commission officials, however, say that the reduction in allocation in SSA is being compensated through increase in allocation for the states by about 25 per cent.

The change in thinking to improve funding for secondary education is visible in the plan document for 2007-08 as allocation for secondary education has been increased to Rs 4,719 crore from current Rs 1067 crores, an increase of about 341 per cent, higher for any of the education sectors.

Reduction in allocation for SSA would, however, mean increased allocation for higher education and for implementation of Moily committee recommendations on the implementation of 27 per cent reservation for OBCs. Higher education is expected to get Rs 6,354 crore in 2007-08 as against Rs 2,550 crore in the financial year 2006-07. This amount includes money for more opening new technical education institutes including IITs and IIMs. The ministry had planned three IITs in Rajasthan, Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.

The government will also provide special allocation for further affirmative action through merit scholarship schemes for which a special fund of Rs 120 crores is being given to the HRD ministry. The commission has proposed a mean test for giving scholarship to all educationally backward classes including Muslims, OBCs and girl child.

Email Chetan Chauhan: chetan @hindustantimes.com

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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