What is the expenditure involved in implementing Right to Education Bill?
The CABE report suggests that the implementation of the Bill will require an additional amount between Rs 3,21,000 crore and Rs 4,26,000 crore over six years — an annual average of Rs 53,500 crore to Rs 72,700 crore in addition to the Rs 47,100 crore that is being spent on elementary education currently (2003-04). The amount budgeted to be raised by the Education Cess in 2005-06 is Rs 6,875 crore, and assuming this grows at the nominal GDP growth (assumed at 12.2% by the CABE Committee for its calculations), it would cover just 15-20% of the additional requirement. The report also points out that state governments may be fiscally constrained from funding incremental expenditure as required to implement the provisions of this Bill, and the entire burden may have to be borne by the central government. This would imply an estimated increase of 6.4%-8.5% to the central government’s annual budget.
