Punjab Government on Tuesday demanded from the Central Government to release the pending funds, to the tune of over `462.24 crore, under the Sarv Sikhya Abhiyan (SSA) programme.
The demand was made by the state Education Minister Aruna Chaudhary while emphatically putting forward certain issues of the state in her address on the last day of the 65th Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) meeting wherein education ministers of all the states participated.
She said: “In case of Punjab, over `1139.10 crore were approved under SSA for the year 2017-18, out of which, the Union Government share comes to over ` 683.46 crore on the basis of 60:40 sharing pattern. But so far, only over `221.22 crore has been released. Balance amount over `462.24 crore is still pending with the Union Government.”
“The Union Government should release its full share under SSA instead of over `315 crores that it has promised to release,” she added.
Further, Chaudhary demanded that central funding should be given to state along with broad objectives of the programme and micro planning should be left to the state.
“Various volunteers have been engaged under various schemes like Education Guarantee Scheme, Alternative and Innovate Education and Special Teacher Trainers etc. These schemes were later discontinued and burden of these volunteers has to be borne by the State putting pressure on its financial resources,” she said.