Right to Education?: Rs 25,620 crore Central funds for Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan remained unutilized in 2014-15

The Parliamentary Standing Committee for the Ministry Human Resource Development in its recent report submitted to the Rajya Sabha has expressed serious concern over the "declining trend" in budgetary allocations by the Government of India for education over the last few years. The report finds that the cut for the year 2015-16 is particularly drastic, leading to the committee raising an alarm.
The data in the report show in the year 2014-15, the Government of India allocated Rs 50,000 crore, but it could spend just Rs 24,380 crore, with a whopping Rs 25,620 crore remaining unspent for its flagship programme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSY), meant to implement right to education (RTE) and universalisation of primary education. The amount remaing unspent in the earlier two years was Rs 21,252 core in 2013-14 and Rs 16,224 crore in 2012-13.
Revealing this, Kiran Bhatty, a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, in an analysis has qualified the report as "nothing short of eye-popping", with the committee expressing "grave apprehension about the cuts in education funding", wondering, whether the Government of India would pass on the buck on states for under-utilization of SSY funds.
The committee, chaired by the BJP’s Satyanarayan Jaitya, says, it is "worried about the pace as well as scale of the on-going schemes", adding, "Picture about the time and amount as well as manner in which gaps are to be filled by the states is not clear. They might take quite a while before they are able to finalise/priorities their activities."

The committee also says it is "worried" about the future of monitoring implementation of the SSA following the the "replacement" of the Planning Commission, which was an intermediary agency between the Centre and states and also acted as monitoring agency, with Niti Ayog.
It says, "It is not clear what monitoring mechanism of the centrally sponsored or central sector schemes would be put in place."

In this framework, it tells the HRD ministry that is concerned "about the future of important schemes like SSA [Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan], MDM [mid-day meals] etc.", strongly recommending the Ministry of Finance to "earmark some funds for these schemes to that they do not come to a halt."
The committee further says, "Many States/UTs are not in position to make even 35 percent contributions towards the implementation of RTE/SSA. Now that there has been a drastic cut in the central funding for the programme it would be more difficult for the states to contribute enhanced share towards this initiative."
Bhatty comments, "What is significant is that the committee doesn’t share the common perspective that the problem in education is not about 'shortage of funds', but about the 'capacity to spend'. Instead, it bemoans the fact that low fund allocation combined with low utilisation is having an impact on the provision of services, especially to children from socio-economically backwards regions and groups."
He adds, "Asking the MHRD to 'speedily' solve this problem is unlikely to result in a solution. We are stuck in a vicious cycle of low fund allocations and low utilisation, which requires much stronger political will to break out of."

Comments

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and the Civil Aviation Minister.

Global NGO slams India for media clampdown during conflict, downplays Pakistan

A global civil rights group, Civicus has taken strong exception to how critical commentaries during the “recent conflict” with Pakistan were censored in India, with journalists getting “targeted”. I have no quarrel with the Civicus view, as the facts mentioned in it are all true.

Whither SCOPE? Twelve years on, Gujarat’s official English remains frozen in time

While writing my previous blog on how and why Narendra Modi went out of his way to promote English when he was Gujarat chief minister — despite opposition from people in the Sangh Parivar — I came across an interesting write-up by Aakar Patel, a well-known name among journalists and civil society circles.

Remembering Vijay Rupani: A quiet BJP leader who listened beyond party lines

Late evening on June 12, a senior sociologist of Indian origin, who lives in Vienna, asked me a pointed question: Of the 241 persons who died as a result of the devastating plane crash in Ahmedabad the other day, did I know anyone? I had no hesitation in telling her: former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, whom I described to her as "one of the more sensible persons in the BJP leadership."

Why India’s renewable energy sector struggles under 2,735 compliance hurdles

Recently, during a conversation with an industry representative, I was told how easy it is to set up a startup in Singapore compared to India. This gentleman, who had recently visited Singapore, explained that one of the key reasons Indians living in the Southeast Asian nation prefer establishing startups there is because the government is “extremely supportive” when it comes to obtaining clearances. “They don’t want to shift operations to India due to the large number of bureaucratic hurdles,” he remarked.

Guha plans book to counter Dalit, Marxist, and right-wing critics of Gandhi, recalls Modi’s 'pernicious lie' on Patel

Let me first confess: writing about an event three weeks after it has taken place is no good, especially for a newsperson. However, ever since I attended the public lecture by well-known historian Ramachandra Guha on May 18, organised by Sarthak Prakashan for the release of the Gujarati edition of his book monumental book "India After Gandhi", frankly, I kept wondering if he had said anything newsworthy apart from what had already appeared in the media ever since the book's first edition came out in 2007. Call it my inertia or whatever.

Two decades on, hunger still haunts Gujarat: Survey exposes stark gap behind poverty claims

A Niti Aayog report , released about two years ago, estimated that in Gujarat — which our powers-that-be have long considered a model state — 11.66% of people are "multidimensionally poor," a term referring to an index that seeks to estimate "multiple and simultaneous deprivations" at the household level across three macro categories: health, education, and living standards.

Search This Blog