The Right to Education Bill, mooted way back in 2004, was again pushed back with the Cabinet deciding to refer the much debated Bill to a group of ministers (GoM).

In the six years following the Constitution (86th Amendment) Act, 2002, entailing free and compulsory education to every child in the age group of 6 to 14 years, state and central governments have not been able to reach an agreement on sharing the expenses.

“There is a question of how much the states should contribute. The GoM will work out the cost expenditure of the Bill,” Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal said af- ter the Cabinet meeting.

The GoM, headed by Human Resource Development Minis- ter Arjun Singh, is unlikely to arrive at a consensus before the monsoon session of Parliament. In fact, the financial implications of the Bill are what is keeping the government in a fix.

A committee of Central Advisory Board on Education, constituted in 2004 to suggest draft legisla- tion, has estimated (through NUEPA) that the entire provi- sions of the Bill, in its true sense, would have financial im- plications amounting to an av- erage of Rs 72,678 crore per an- num, or about 1.5 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) over the six-year period and even in the most conserva tive scenario, amount to an av erage of Rs 53,467 crore per an num or about 1.1 per cent of GDP. Taken aback by the mam moth money requirement, the government at one point wanted to just pass on a model bill to the states, asking them to implement an act on those lines.

A high level committee was also constituted under Arjun Singh to break the jinx and set sail the bill. Now the ministry has brought down the estimations drastically to accommodate the bill in the budget of the country. The Bill, from the beginning, was a point of contention as it was pushing the primary responsibility of implementing the act on the states.

The states, on their part, had expressed inability to provide for the provisions of the Act.

Recently, the ministry had expressed its willingness to contribute more generously for the Bill’s provisions.

“Taking into view the protest and inabilities expressed by the states, that they cannot meet the financial implications of the Bill, we have now taken a decision to share the costs in a ratio agreeable to states and which would ease their burden also. Though there is no exact ratio worked out now, our aim is to provide all necessary help to the states in the implementation of the Act,” a highly placed source in the ministry said earlier.