State seeks 90 pc Central funding for shiksha abhiyan

Taking a lead, Karnataka government has demanded the Centre to share 90 per cent of the cost of implementation of Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) by the States in view of their “limited capacity” to spend on the education sector.

State Education Minister R V Deshpande, speaking at a meeting of the Central Advisory Board on Education (CABE) on Friday, asserted that Karnataka was in a “good position in terms of preparedness” for availing the benefits of the scheme, approved by the Union Cabinet recently.

“Education being a subject in the concurrent list, and the fact that the capacity to spend on education sector by the States being limited, there needs to be a greater role to be played by the Centre and need to support all the States by allocating funds in the ratio of 90:10,” Deshpande said,

hinting that financial crunch may affect implementation of the programme in Karnataka.
He lauded the formulation and intent of the Central scheme, saying RUSA seeks to create “reasonably good” institutional structure and framework with right kind of bottom up approach to address various shortcomings in the state higher education sector.

Deshpande’s suggestion found support from many states which doubted their
ability to implement RUSA despite the feeling that it can improve infrastructure and quality of their higher institution, many of which are in a sorry state.

According to the scheme, the 90:10 ratio of centre-state fund sharing can be applied only to the North-Eastern States, Sikkim, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. For other states, the ratio is 65:35.

“We are in the process of establishing the State Assessment and Accreditation Council. We are also taking necessary measures to establish Integrated Higher Educational Information system to provide data for proper planning and execution of RUSA in our State,” he said.