Education

State Demands Rise and Fall, But Samagra Shiksha Approvals Stay Flat

Even as states propose widely varying budgets each year, the Project Approval Board’s recommendations remain relatively stable, hovering near ₹60,000 crore.

3 min read
Samagra Shiksha Exploration

Samagra Shiksha Offers 60,000 Crores – Give or Take

Column plot showing the yearly average fund approval percentage under Samagra Shiksha

Figures for each year calculated by summing total amount proposed by all states/UTs and amount recommended by PAB. Amounts in Rs. Crores.

Source: PAB Minutes, DoSEL

Rough Copy by thatgurjot

Over the last eight years that the Samagra Shiksha scheme has been around, the total amount proposed by all states and UTs has varied widely between years. It hit an all-time high of over one lakh crores in 2019-20 and fell to just shy of sixty thousand crores in the second year of COVID.

But the Project Approval Board appears to be unbothered by this fluctuation. The approved amount for each year has stayed largely flat between 2018-19 and 2025-26.

There are two things that stick out for me –

  1. The chart shows the nominal value of the proposed and approved amounts. How does this change when adjusted for inflation?
  2. The demand for grants documents show that the Union Budget’s allocations to Samagra Shiksha have been below 40,000 crores all these years. But the total approvals are over 60,000 crores. How does that work?

The answers are fairly simple.

First, adjusted for inflation, both the proposed and approved amounts have reduced over the years.

Second, the approved amount is a paper agreement between the Ministry and the states. The actual release of funds takes place slowly and is sometimes spread over multiple financial years. In the real world the Ministry will never have to transfer the entirety of the approved funds to all states within the same financial year. Plus, the amounts for Samagra Shiksha are split between the Central and State Governments. However, the Union Budget only shows the Central Share, while the PAB Approval represents the Total Outlay. If the PAB approves ₹60,000 crore, the Center is only on the hook for roughly ₹36,000 to ₹40,000 crore. The rest is expected to come from state coffers.

So is it the Government of India’s fault for not keeping the approved amounts commensurate to inflation? Or is it the fault of the states for not being able to utilise even the funds that they do receive and yet asking for more?

No easy answers for this one.

Context: The Samagra Shiksha scheme started in 2018-19 as a consolidated centrally sponsored scheme for providing school education. Each year the scheme’s Project Approval Board (PAB) grants states and UTs a corpus for enhancing the quality of education in government schools. Both states and the PAB have to abide by the scheme’s Financial Management and Procurement Manual in this process. The minutes of these meetings along with the data on the activities, proposals and recommendations is published on the Ministry’s website.