Reservation pays, states told

Sources say states which implement quotas under the Right to Education scheme will get 25 per cent more funds from the Centre than the others.

Published on: May 24, 2006, 02:26:00 IST

None | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Even as the reservation row grows, the HRD Ministry has made a proposal to give a higher grant to states where private unaided schools have quotas for educationally, socially and economically weaker sections than to those that do not.

In a proposal submitted to the Planning Commission for the Eleventh Plan, the HRD Ministry has sought funds to the tune of Rs 50,000 crore to fund the Right to Education scheme. A part of it was meant to pay private, unaided schools for the free education of students from the weaker sections of society, said an official.

Sources say states which implement quotas under the Right to Education scheme will get 25 per cent more funds from the Centre than the others.

While states that do not have reservation in unaided schools will be paid 25 per cent of their expenses, those having quota will get up to 50 per cent of the overheads depending on the percentage of reservation.

“The idea is that the Centre will meet most of the expenses towards the free education of children from weaker sections,” an official said.

Under the model Right to Education Bill, likely to be introduced in the monsoon session, states which adopt it will have to make payment to private unaided schools. This will cover tuition fees and other expenses of students who belong to weaker sections.

“It will be on the states to define weaker sections and bring in a law for the percentage of reservation. We are fixing any figure,” an official said.

On why there was no quota regime for government schools, the official said reservation was only applicable where admission was limited and in government schools, there was no such restriction.

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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