The Odisha government’s reluctance to implement the Centrally-funded PM Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) scheme has set the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) regime and the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) Union government on a conflict mode. The Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan inaugurated the scheme on September 7, 2022, aiming to establish over 14,500 schools across the country. Initially, 6,207 schools have been identified .
The BJD government is yet to respond to two letters from Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan as
Pradhan urged Minister Naveen Patnaik many times over the past three months, to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Department of School Education and Literacy under the Ministry for the implementation of the scheme in the State.
A BJD member claims the PM SHRI scheme Insignificant as compared to the state’s own sponsored project which has so far spent 3411 in high school refurbishment under the 5T initiative. Also, BJD stated that the Odisha Adarsha Vidyalaya initiative have already equipped all the important elements that the PM SHRI opting to implement.
Some members of opposition also claimed that the state govt has not responded positively to the scheme since they are afraid about the credit will go for central ministry or if the praise will not be attributed to the state BJD party.
However, the PM SHRI scheme intended to bring revolutionary changed in the field of education with holistic approaches through installing high tech laboratories, libraries, smart classrooms, latest technologies to ensure high quality learning in a inclusive, equitable, joyful environment. The PM SHRI Schools will be modelled as green schools incorporating environment-friendly aspects like solar panels and LED lights, nutrition gardens with natural farming, waste management, plastic-free, water conservation and harvesting, study of practises related to protection of the environment, climate change related hackathon.
According to the Ministry of Education and Literacy, for the fiscal year 2023-24, the Centre has sanctioned Rs 50.8 crore for the state’s schools run by the Centre, of which Rs 12.7 crore has already been released in the first instalment. A total of Rs 7.27 crore was rolled out for 37 central schools and Rs 5.43 crore for 26 Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas. The government is providing about Rs 70,000 crore to various states each year for development of the education sector and notably, Odisha is getting nearly Rs 4,200 crore each year under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan and PM Poshan schemes.
