Congress' Freebies For School-Going Children In Madhya Pradesh Will Eat Up 2/3 Of Education Budget

Congress announced 'Padho-Padhao Yojana' in a rally in Mandala, Madhya Pradesh on Thursday (12 October) to give a monthly allowance to school-going children as the state is going to polls on 17 November.

According to the announcement by Congress national general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, students of classes 1 to 8 will get a monthly payment of Rs 500 if Congress comes to power in the poll-bound state.

Similarly, students of classes 9-10 and 11-12 will get Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500 respectively as a monthly installment. The Congress claimed that the aim is to relieve parents' tensions about child education.

However, this kind of freebie can be said first of a kind as cash dole-outs for minors were unheard of until now.

If we consider school-going children in the age category of 5 to 19, then according to the 2011 census, their population was 2.43 crore.

Since the census data is available for age categories 5 to 9, 10 to 14 and 15 to 19, we can assume that the children of the first two categories will receive a monthly amount of Rs 500. This puts the total monthly expenditure at Rs 840 crore for students of classes 1 to 8.

For the 15 to 19 age category, we assume a monthly amount of Rs 1,250 (average of Rs 1,000 and Rs 1,500). This gives a total expenditure of Rs 931 crore.

Thus, the total expenditure of the state government in 'Padho-Padhao' scheme will be around Rs 1,770 crore monthly and Rs 21,240 crore annually.

Notably, Madhya Pradesh spent around Rs 31,000 crore on Education, Sports, Arts, and Culture in 2021-22. The burden of 'Padho-Padhao' scheme will be as large as two-thirds of the education budget.

This leaves less room for expenditure on overall education infrastructure. In such a scenario, Karnataka's case, where Congress came to power based on freebie promises, is likely to be repeated in Madhya Pradesh.

Readers can recall Karnataka Deputy CM DK Shivakumar's statement in July when he said that the Congress government would face challenges in providing funds for development this year due to financial constraints arising from the commitments made under the five guarantees.