By way of political irony, the Right to Education (RTE) which along with National Food Security Act (NFSA) was vaunted as a major achievement for the erstwhile Congress-led UPA Government is now proving to be a big financial burden for the Congress Government in Uttarakhand.
The cash-starved State Government had spent Rs 53.45 crores on the reimbursement of fees for the students of underprivileged sections of society, studying in the private schools of the State under Right to Education (RTE) till last year.
The data reveals that the State Government reimbursed Rs 6.39 crores for the year 2011-12, Rs 13.60 crores for the year 2012-13 and Rs 33.45 crores for the year 2013-14 to meet the tuition and other expenses on students under RTE.
This amount is bound to multiply in the coming years as the students once enrolled under RTE in a private school would be provided fee reimbursement till the highest class of that school.
There are 65,854 students studying in private schools of the State under the RTE Act. The parents of these students do not have to bear the expenses of tuition fee which is reimbursed in the bank account of the students.
The education department reimburses the lower of the monthly tuition fees of the school or Rs 1,383 per month per student in the bank account of the students.
The department also transfers Rs 1,165 for Mid-Day Meal (MDM), Rs 150 for textbook and Rs 400 per year for uniforms in this account.
The Deputy Director, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), Kusum Pant acknowledged while interacting with The Pioneer that the financial burden of the scheme would be increasing every year. She said that Rs 17.56 crore were disbursed in Dehradun district, while Rs 12.56 crore were spent in Udham Singh Nagar out of the total Rs 53.45 crore spent by the State Government in the three years since the scheme started getting implemented in the State.
The top officials of the education department admitted that the expenditure incurred on the under- privileged students under RTE Act would soon cross Rs 100 crores per year, as more students would be added in the list of the existing beneficiaries.
The students enrolled in class I would be supported by the State Government till he passes the class VIII. According to sources, the State Government is mulling to request the Centre to bear at least a part of this huge and escalating cost.
The Centre bears the cost of MDM in Government schools under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), but it has put the onus of reimbursing the cost of MDM of the students of underprivileged sections studying in the private schools under RTE on the State Government.
According to the provisions of the RTE, wards of the parents belonging to Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), non-creamy layers of Other Backward Castes (OBCs), patients of leprosy and AIIDS should be the beneficiaries of 25% reservations in the private schools under RTE. In addition to them, individuals with an annual income of less than Rs 55,000 are also the beneficiaries of the same.