West Bengal education minister accuses Centre of holding back funds for Sarva Shiksha Mission

KOLKATA: West Bengal Education minister Bratya Basu has alleged that the Centre has not released the third instalment of the Sarva Shiksha Mission (SSM) for the state. Basu claimed in a social media post on Friday that the Centre is yet to send the amount as West Bengal has not signed MoU with the Centre on PM SHRI (Pradhan Mantri School for Rising India) scheme.

"Ministry of Finance and Internal Finance Division of Ministry of Education has cleared the release of the third instalment for West Bengal for the SSM. Still, the fund has not been released to our state. The unstated reason is that we have not signed the MoU with GoI on PM SHRI. It is completely unethical and illegal to link the release of funds of one scheme with a separate scheme," the senior TMC leader said in a post on X.

Basu also wondered why should a scheme be named PM SHRI when the state is bearing 40 per cent of the share. This is nothing but petty politics, he alleged.

Basu told reporters on Saturday "I haven't seen such a vindictive Central government earlier. After officially releasing the money which is our due, they are blocking the flow. Are they not hurting the interest of the student community?. The SSM is an integrated scheme for school education from pre-school to class 12 levels. The scheme is in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goal for Education (SDG-4).