Over Rs 500 cr stuck, fund-starved Punjab agrees to roll out Centre’s PM SHRI schools scheme

Punjab had opted out of the project despite confirming its participation by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Education Ministry.

“The matter was considered again and decision has been taken that the state of Punjab will implement PM SHRI scheme…for that it is requested to provide indicative budget to prepare the plan under this scheme and also open the Prabandh Portal on which the plan may be submitted…,” Punjab education secretary Kamal Kishor Yadav wrote to Union education secretary Sanjay Kumar, in a letter dated July 26 (copy with The Indian Express).

Confirming that Punjab has agreed to implement PM SHRI scheme, Union Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary, in a written reply to a question by MP Harsimrat Badal during the ongoing Lok Sabha session, replied: “…state of Punjab, on the repeated requests of Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education, has communicated that they will implement PM SHRI scheme. Therefore, there is no logjam between the Government and the State Government of Punjab over the PM SHRI scheme”.

The scheme has a budget of Rs 27,000 crore for upgrading 14,500 schools across country over the next five years with Centre bearing 60% of the financial burden and the states 40%. In Punjab, 241 schools were selected for infrastructural upgrade under the scheme. The SSA covers basic expenses of government schools from pre-school to class XII, including salaries of teachers, infrastructure, uniforms and books.

A senior Punjab official, requesting not to be named, said the state government had started feeling the pinch as it was “not possible for us to continue school education programmes running without Centre’s 60% grant”.

“Everything, from books, construction of new buildings and classrooms were affected. The decision was reconsidered at CM’s level and it was decided to implement the PM-SHRI scheme in the state,” the official said.

The Centre had withheld the 3rd and 4th installment for FY 2023-24 (Rs 350 crore approximately) and first installment for FY 2024-25 (around Rs 165 crore approximately) under the SSA for Punjab. After several letters by state education department to the Centre requesting the release of funds failed to yield any result, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann also shot off a letter to Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan stating that the “non release of fund is going to be very detrimental to the education system at large”.

Mann further wrote that due to the “non-release of the already allocated budget, the basic activities under Samagra and…RTE entitlements of students have come to a halt” in the state. However, the state neither received any reply to Mann’s letter, nor were the funds released.

Punjab had signed the MoU with the Centre in October 2022 and schools that were to be upgraded were identified, but the state later backed out. On March 9, Pradhan wrote to Mann, stating that “Punjab has unilaterally opted out of the PM-SHRI scheme, contrary to the terms stipulated in the signed MoU”.

On March 15, Punjab’s education secretary, Kamal Kishor Yadav, wrote to Centre that the state doesn’t want to be a part of the project. He said that the state was already implementing its own “Schools of Eminence”, “Schools of Brilliance” and “Schools of Happiness”, which would be aligned with NEP.

Parallelly, Punjab education department officials had been writing letters over pending SSA funds. In a letter dated January 18, Punjab’s Samagra Shiksha state project director Vinay Bublani wrote to Vipin Kumar, joint secretary, Ministry of Education, requesting the release of funds “so that balance payments and targets fixed could be achieved in time”.

On March 5, Yadav wrote to his central government counterpart Sanjay Kumar, saying, “Currently there is no balance in the Single Nodal Account of Samagra Shiksha due to which payments for some activities are pending, including employees’ salaries”.

Punjab education minister Harjot Singh Bains had earlier said that it would be difficult to pay salaries from September onwards if Centre fails to release the funds under the SSA.