Allocations for education left unspent

Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh has conceded to Business Standard that his ministry had been unable to spend all the money allocated to his ministry. However, he has pledged that the entire allocation would be spent this year.

This year's Budget showers a lot of money for development of education in the country. In 2007-08, Rs 32,352 crore was allocated for education, which was 32 per cent above the allocation for 2006-07.

However, the ministry demonstrated constraints to its absorptive capacity: The Revised Estimates indicated only Rs 28,674 crore had been spent.

Most errant were the departments of higher education and secondary education. The comparison between the 2007-08 and 2008-09 Revised Estimates suggests the trend continues.

While the secondary education segment got a major boost last year with an allocation of Rs 3,794 crore, which is a quantum leap from the Rs 1,837 crore allocated in 2006-07, the ministry failed to utilise the amount, leading to Rs 2,159 crore returning to the exchequer. The revised Estimate for secondary education is a mere Rs 1,635 crore.

The National Means cum Merit Scholarship Scheme announced by the finance minister in his February 2007 Budget speech has been a non-starter. The scheme was meant to encourage students to continue education beyond Class VIII by providing Rs 6,000 each year till Class XII.

For 2007-08, the finance minister allocated Rs 750 crore for a corpus fund into which same amount will be put in the next three years. But the scheme, under which 100,000 scholarships were to be handed out each year, is still being finalised for implementation.

The Department of Higher Education which witnessed a major hike in its allocation owing to the 54 per cent expansion for implementation of OBC quota in the central higher educational institutions (CEIs) had returned half of its Budget allocations.

The ministry was allocated Rs 6,483 crore in last year's Budget for expansion of higher education, but the Revised Estimates show that the ministry was able to spend only Rs 3,262 crore, leading to the other Rs 3,221 crore going back to the finance ministry.

With the Supreme Court staying the implementation of the OBC quota in CEIs last year, it seems the ministry was not able to utilise allocations provided for the purpose. Some of the IITs told Business Standard that the institutes had not received any money under the OBC expansion head.

All the above sectors have been provided much higher allocations in this year's Budget as well. The finance minister has allocated Rs 34,400 crore for the development of education sector in the country, which is 20 per cent above the allocation of Rs 28,674 (RE) for 2007-08.