Bengal: Minister of Education charges center of embezzling money for Sarva Siksha Mission

Mita Mukherjee
Bratya Basu, the minister of education for Bengal, charged on Friday that the Union government has withheld the third tranche of funding allocated for the state’s Sarva Shiksha Mission (SSM).

The minister stated that although the money were approved by the Ministry of Education’s internal finance division and the Union Ministry of Finance, the state has not received them.

“Ministry of Finance and Internal Finance Division of Ministry of Education has cleared the release of the third installment for West Bengal for the SSM,” Basu said on his X account. The State has still not had access to the monies. The reason we haven’t signed an agreement with the GoI on PM SHRI is the unstated reason.

With the help of the PM Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) programme, around 14,500 government-aided schools would be upgraded, hopefully benefiting close to 20 lakh pupils. Making sure the schools can function as model institutions in the spirit of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 is the goal of their development.

The Center had stated that in order for a state to receive funding under the program, the state and the Center would need to sign a memorandum of agreement.

Bengal and a few other states, such as Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Delhi, have not signed up for the program.

Linking the fund release of one plan to another is utterly unethical and against the law. Why should a scheme be named PM SHRI when the State is bearing 40% of the share?#petty politics#,” Basu wrote on his X handle.

State governments are in charge of implementing the Sarva Siksha Mission plan. The states must pay 40% of the overall program implementation costs, with the Center covering the remaining 60%.

Although Basu had written to the Center asking that the funds be released for the benefit of the students, he noted that nothing had been done in this regard up to this point.

Even earlier, the education minister had criticized the Union government of providing the state with insufficient funding under the same program. On February 6, he had stated on the floor of the state Assembly that Bengal is expected to receive Rs 1745.79 crore under the Sarva Shiksha Mission for the fiscal year 2023–2024. However, the state received just Rs 311.294 crore up till December 31, 2023.

The minister had claimed that the Center had also embezzled money from the state for programs related to education, such as midday food programs.