Post 17% increase MHRD to seek more funds to meet commitments

Education stocks didnot cheer allocation, scrips declined as much as 9% on the BSE today

A 17% jump with an allocation Rs 65,867 crore for 2013-14 fiscal cheered the education industry but the market did not react positively.

Scrip of companies in the education space fell with Career Point limited touching a new low at Rs 125.80, down 3.08%. While Educomp Solutions was down 1.88% at Rs 83.30; Core Education was down 9.04% at Rs 54.85. Everonn Education however, was up 2.16% at Rs 66.25.

HRD Minister M M PallamRaju termed the allocation as little increase and said would be seeking more allocation to meet the goals.
"I think there has been little bit of increase. But the important factor is that the deadline for implementing the Right to Education (RTE) Act is coming up and subsequent to that, there will be a lot of demand from the states for central share of money and I think that is what we should be prepared for," said Raju. 

With most states yet to fulfill the RTE provisions failing which schools face the prospects of being derecognised.While the plan expenditure for Department of School Education has been kept at Rs 49,659 crore  the plan expenditure for Department of Higher Education has been put at Rs 16,198 crore.

In addition to this, the FM provided Rs 27,258 crore for Sarva Siksha Abhiyan (SSA). The Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan programme, which aims at universalisation of secondary education, has got Rs 3983 crore for 2013-14, an increase of Rs 25.6% over the revised estimate. 

“Increased allocations for RTE - SSA and for RMSA reiterate the government’s commitment towards strengthening school education.  Government’s proposal of setting Rs 1000 crores apart for motivating nearly 10 million youth to voluntarily join skill development programmes and releasing funds from other schemes for skill development activities is a welcome move,” said  Dhiraj Mathur, Leader Education, PwC India.
 
However, child rights organisation, Child Rights and You said, that the aggregate outlay for child-specific schemes as a proportion of total budget outlay has been around the 4% mark since 2005. It is disconcerting to note the decline in the proposed percentage of total expenditure to 4.63% against 4.78 last year.  
 
“The trend and direction is far from encouraging given the fact that children – individuals up to the age of 18 constitute about 42% of the country's population today. A lot more vision and innovation is called for,” said Puja Marwaha, CEO Child Relief and You.