Panjab Opts Out of PM’s School Upgrade; Delhi Withholds $61.87M

The Panjab govt. has opted out of the PM-Schools for Rising India (PM-SHRI) project, leading to a loss of $61.87M in federal funds under the Samagra Shiksha initiative. The AAP govt. says it prefers its ‘Schools of Eminence’ initiative to revamp 117 state-run schools. Despite signing a 2022 Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the union govt., Panjab cites existing schemes like ‘Schools of Brilliance’ and ‘Schools of Happiness’ as reasons to decline participating in the PM-SHRI project. The union govt. has since withheld its grants. Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, the MP for Ludhiana and president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) has expressed deep concern and disappointment over the AAP government’s decision to withdraw from the PM-SHRI project. He said, ‘The ground reality of the AAP government’s project shows that existing schools are merely being repainted and new boards installed as a means of advertisement, with no actual work done to revamp the schools. Only 117 schools come under the AAP project, whereas a total of 241 schools were selected for the PM-SHRI project.’ This year, after three rounds of counseling for Class 11 admissions, 40% of the seats – 6,060 out of the total 15,104 seats – are still vacant in 118 Schools of Eminence. Of the total vacant seats, 3,909 are under govt. quota while 2,151 are under private school student quota. The issue seems to be similar to Aam Aadmi Clinics where the national govt. also withheld funds because the state govt. was more interested in its experiments than complying with nationwide policies (SDW Vol. 2 Issue 1, Story 7).