new delhi the budget allocation of rs 4904 crore for the hrd ministrys department of elementary education and literacy has raised doubts about the governments intentions and ability to bridge the huge literacy gap in the next decadealthough hrd minister murli manohar joshi had last november challenged the unescos global monitoring report that placed india among the nations unlikely to achieve the literacy targets the budget allocation has caused cynics to note that the amount is woefully inadequateeduardo faleiro congress rajya sabha member says the shortage of funds would lead to a collapse of public funding of primary educationsaffronisation is only a small part of the governments policy the more insidious thing is the widening of the richpoor gap among the students at the primary and elementary school levels he addsterming the budget high on rhetoric low on allocations sanjiv kaura activist of nafre a conglomerate of education ngos said the inability of the education sector to absorb funds was often given as the justification for the low allocation but this was due to systemic inefficiencies instead of using these problems of implementation as excuses we should try to remedy themfaleiro said the increased allocation for the sarva shiksha abhiyan ssa from rs 1512 crore to rs 195125 crore was fictitious in that it has been obtained by cancelling important schemes like operation black board rs 58 crore and the central plan for the northeast rs 388 crorewhile operation black board formulated by the national education policy 1986 and revised in 1992 had done well in the northeastern region all states except mizoram have been lagging behindthe ssa allotment is not even 10 per cent of the rs 13700 crore per year assessed by the tapas majumdar committee in 1999 for universalisation of elementary education scaled down to rs 9008 crore in the financial memorandum of the 93rd amendment to the constitution over a year after passing this amendment the government was yet to bring in a central legislation to implement itfaleiro said the rs 12000 tax relief for parents having two schoolgoing children was an elitist measure in that a large majority of families in the country do not or cannot spend that much amount on educationkaura called it yet another proof of withdrawal of the state from education the privatisation of basic education after removing the poor from its ambit is now hurting the middle class hence the need to give this sopthe finance minister would do well to learn from his western counterparts despite globalisation never has privatisation or liberalisation entered the realm of basic education even in the most industrialised and privatised countries said kaurafaleiro also questioned the hrd ministry granting permission to foreign investment at the primary school level external funding will come from banks and financial institutions that will be used to make profits and will have to be repaid this will only promote consumerism and at some stage the investors will dictate the syllabi as well he said