Punjab Govt To Implement PM SHRI: Deadlock With Centre Ends, AAP Government To Introduce Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India Scheme in State

Chandigarh, July 30: The Punjab government will implement PM SHRI, a year after the state's AAP dispensation opted out of the centrally-sponsored scheme. The Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) scheme aims to upgrade schools as model institutes and encapsulate the spirit of the National Education Policy, 2020.

The development came to the fore after Union Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary informed the Lok Sabha on Monday while replying to a question by Shiromani Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal. "Now the state of Punjab, on the repeated requests of the Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education, communicated on July 26 that it would implement PM SHRI," he said in a written reply. Tamil Nadu Agrees to Implement PM SHRI School Scheme: Centre.

"Therefore, there is no logjam between the government and the state government of Punjab over PM SHRI," he added. Badal had asked if the logjam between the government and the Punjab government over PM SHRI would adversely impact education in the state. She had also asked if, by opting out of government schemes such as PM SHRI, the Punjab government was depriving the state's people of crucial school upgrade, according to the National Education Policy, 2020. Punjab Government Provides Tricity Metro Depot with 50 Acres, Opening the Door for Better Urban Mobility.

The AAP government on July 18 last year opted out of PM SHRI. It had then said that it wanted to continue with its Schools of Eminence project under which 117 existing schools for classes 9 to 12 were being revamped. The state government opted out despite signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Union education ministry for the centrally-sponsored scheme in October 2022.

After it opted out, the Centre stopped the release of grants amounting to Rs 550 crore under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, the flagship programme for school education. PM SHRI aims to upgrade 14,500 schools in five years and has a budget of more than Rs 27,000 crore in a 60:40 Centre-state ratio.

The Union Cabinet approved the scheme on September 7, 2022, to showcase the implementation of the National Education Policy, 2020, emerge as exemplary schools, and also offer leadership to other schools in the neighbourhood. In Punjab, 241 government schools were selected for the scheme. Under PM SHRI, 34 states and Union Territories, as well as the Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan and the Navodaya Vidyalaya Sangathan, signed the MoU.

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