As with other development initiatives of the Government, for instance the national rural jobs scheme, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, meant to take education to the masses, has turned out to be a massive scam with thousands of crores of rupees being siphoned away. How long shall we live with such corruption?
Just like I wrote about the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, one of the landmark development initiatives of the UPA Government, this time I have decided to write about an equally, or rather more significant, development initiative: Sarva Siksha Abhiyan. This initiative holds the promise of transforming the entire socio-economic landscape of the nation, if delivered to its potential. Now, there is a big 'if' here, as going by precedence, each and every development initiative of the Government has been full of corruption, coupled with delivery inadequacies. And the same has been a reality with respect to Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan as well.
A recent report by British media revealed that millions of pounds of aid for education under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan programme have literally disappeared. The report put this figure at a staggering £ 340 million, which is around Rs 2,327 crore! To further this report, the Comptroller and Auditor-General's investigation has found that almost £1 4 million (around Rs 100 crore) had been spent on luxuries — new cars, luxury beds, computers, et al — that had no connection with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan. So much so that around Rs 1.02 crore was transferred into non-traceable bank accounts. Not just that, electronic equipments like air-conditioners, fax machines, photocopiers and colour television sets were bought for regions which had no electricity supply. And that's just one side of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan story.
Another CAG report reveals that around 68 per cent of the Rs 8,000 crore allotted for elementary education development work, which was spent under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, had no records. A 2006 report highlighted irregularities of funds usage to the tune of Rs 470 million in 14 states under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan schemes. A brief glimpse through other media reports, in the span of the last few years, is enough to give a concrete idea about how States like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh are spending allocated funds on projects that have nothing to do with Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.
As such, India is among the lowest spenders on education. Couple this with the fact that India also has the largest number of illiterate people in the world. In this light, it is criminal that funds to the tune of thousands of crores of rupees get siphoned away just like that.
Putting the numbers into perspective, if the total allocated money (Rs 31,036 crore as per the 2010-11 Budget) were to be disbursed directly to 192 million children (or 19.2 crore children) who officially come under the ambit of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, then each student would receive more than Rs 1,600 each this year. Considering that a student generally has to pay an average monthly fee of Rs 100 (it actually ranges from Rs 70 to Rs 150 in rural areas) at rural elementary schools in India, giving Rs 1,600 annually to students directly would not only enable them to pay the annual fees, but would also result in some extra pocket money. Direct disbursement seems to be a much more rational and fruitful method, when seen in the light of corruption and scams.
If one were to calculate the per capita loss on account of funds embezzled, then each deprived child has actually been robbed of Rs 121, so to speak. In other words, the embezzlers have shamelessly robbed formal education from the lives of above 1.4 crore children (considering the allocation being Rs 1,600 per child). And mind you, this corruption has far reaching future implications. It has not just robbed today's education from the lives of crores of children, it has also forever robbed their chances of living with dignity.
However, it is also a fact that this is not the first time we are coming across such scales of corruption. And it is also not the first time that foreign media has reported about such deficiencies in our system. But nothing seems to change. Nothing will change till the time we have a decaying judiciary, as right now in the given judicial environment the cost of corruption is negligible for the offender despite being extremely high on society. More so in the case of education.
Considering that education provides the maximum returns on investment to society, the delivery framework around an initiative like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has to be cast in stone. The judiciary has to necessarily dole out such stringent sentences to the guilty — and that too quickly — so that it sets the right precedent for potential offenders. If we are incapable of doing so, then we have no business to draft any development initiative under the garb of which we keep robbing national resources for private gains. Enough is enough.
