Maharashtra: Time of reckoning

Dipta Joshi The Maharashtra state government’s ill-advised initiative to slash the reimbursement amount payable to private unaided schools admitting students under s.12 (1) (c) of the Right of Children to Free & Compulsory Education (aka RTE) Act, 2009, has boomeranged. Dattatray Jagtap, director of the school education department, who recommended that the amount payable by the state government to private schools under this provision of the Act should be reduced to Rs.8,000 from Rs.17,670 per student per year, has been transferred to the examinations department. Moreover, now the state government is in the unenviable position of having to explain unpaid arrears of Rs.1,800 crore before the Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court. The landmark RTE Act guarantees all children aged 6-14 years free-of-charge admission into classes I-VIII in neighbourhood schools, even if they are privately promoted institutions. The Act stipulates that private schools admitting poor household children should be reimbursed expenses incurred equivalent to per child expense incurred by (state) governments in public schools. The state government’s calculation of per child expense by public schools is Rs.17,160 per annum. Last May, on Jagtap’s recommendation the state government unilaterally reduced the payout to Rs.8,000 per child or actual fees of private schools, if lower. Statewide, 700 non-minority (minority schools were exempted by the Supreme Court in 2012) English-medium schools reserve 25 percent of their seats in classes I-VIII for children from economically weaker section (poor) households in their neighbourhood as mandated by s.12 (1) (c). However, the state has been taking its time to reimburse private schools the amounts due to them under s.12 (2). Pending dues under this head have aggregated Rs.1,800 crore over the past three years ended March 31, 2021. In blatant violation of s.12 (2) of the RTE Act, successive state governments — including the incumbent Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi coalition (Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress) — have been slow to discharge their s.12 (2) obligation to private schools. In academic year 2019-20, the government reimbursed a mere 50 percent of dues without clearing the previous backlog. Moreover, citing the closure of schools during the past 16 pandemic months, the May 19 circular almost halved the government payout to Rs.8,000 per child despite private schools having incurred considerable capital outlays to provide online learning and continuing to pay teachers’ salaries. Inevitably this unilateral reimbursement cut has hit the state’s 32,000 estimated low-fee budget private schools (BPS) hardest. According to Jagtap’s report dated November 2, 2020, Maharashtra’s private schools were getting higher s.12 (2) per-child reimbursements at Rs.17,670, whereas private schools in other states such as Karnataka and Gujarat were being reimbursed a paltry Rs.4,300 and Rs.13,000 per child per year. However, according to the Nagpur-based RTE Foundation which has obtained information under the Right to Information Act, 2005 from several state governments, the Karnataka state government pays private schools Rs.16,000 per year for children admitted under s.12 (1) (c) and Delhi state pays Rs.17,000. “English medium budget private schools are under tremendous pressure to keep themselves afloat.…