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Informist, Wednesday, May 21, 2025

NEW DELHI – The Tamil Nadu government on Wednesday filed a suit in the Supreme Court against the Centre for withholding funds under the Samagra Shiksha Scheme. The state said the Centre was withholding INR 21.52 billion over non-implementation of the New Education Policy, 2020, and Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India, or PM SHRI, scheme in Tamil Nadu.

The state government said the Centre's project approval board had allocated INR 35.86 billion as the total outlay under the scheme. According to the rule wherein the central government shells out 60% of the corpus and the state 40% for a centrally-sponsored scheme, the Centre's share amounted to INR 21.52 billion and was payable to Tamil Nadu from Apr. 1, 2024, the state government said.

However, the Centre has failed to disburse any installment sanctioned by the project approval board, the state said. The reason was that the Centre had linked the release of Samagra Shiksha Scheme funds to the implementation of the National Education Policy and the 'NEP exemplary PM SHRI Schools' scheme despite the fact that these were separate schemes, the Tamil Nadu government said.

The reason behind such apparent linkage was the fact that the memorandum of understanding pertaining to PM SHRI Schools scheme dictates implementation of National Education Policy 2020 across Tamil Nadu in entirety, which is not agreeable to the state. Tamil Nadu had opposed a clause in the new policy that sought adoption of a three-language formula in the state's schools.

Under the proposed three-language formula, students would have to learn three languages, at least two of which must be native to India. However, the Tamil Nadu government viewed the move as a "smokescreen" for imposition of the Hindi language in the state and insisted that it would continue with its two-language policy, which included only Tamil and English. 

The central government, by withholding the petitioner's entitlement to receive funds under the Samagra Shiksha Scheme, was in ignorance of the doctrine of cooperative federalism, and sought to coerce and force the state to implement the New Education Policy, 2020, throughout the state in its entirety, the state government said.  End

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Nishant Maher

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