DESPITE an increase of Rs 4,000 crore from the previ- ous fiscal year, the alloca- tion for primary education in this year's budget is still not sufficient to implement the Right to Education Act, experts point out. The Union Budget 2010 has proposed to increase the plan allocation for primary school education from Rs 26, 800 crore in 2009-10 to Rs 31,036 crore in 2010-11, which would mean an increase of 16 per cent in school education expenditure in the com- ing fiscal as against the current year.

The State would also have access to Rs 3, 675 crore for elementary education under the 13th Finance Commission grants for 2010-11. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, while presenting the budget, had said that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, had created a framework for legal entitlement for all children in the age group of 6 to 14 to education of good qual- ity, with equity and non-discrimination.

While the Minister claimed that 98 per cent of the country had primary schools, thanks to the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan - which had contributed towards enrolment and infrastructure of schools -CRY(Child Relief and You) DGM P Krishnamurthy begged to differ. "The demand of education- ists has been that 6 per cent of the GDP should be allocated for education as even this 16 per cent rise from last year does not meet the need of the hour," he said