NEW DELHI: The standing committee on ‘Social Justice and Empowerment on Wednesday asked the Tribal Affairs Ministry to make concerted efforts to overcome the hurdles in implementation of the ‘Eklavya Model Residential School (EMRS) scheme, a flagship initiative of the Central government.
In the report submitted by the standing committee on Social Justice and Empowerment on Demands for Grants (2025-26) of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in Lok Sabha, it said that the funds allocated for the scheme should be utilized fully to provide quality education to tribal students. The EMRS scheme aims to provide quality education to ST students in remote areas with a target of establishing 728 schools by 2026.
The panel headed by P C Mohan also recommended that the ministry should revise annual per student recurring expenditure in EMRS and strengthen the administrative infrastructure of NEST.
“The average recurring expenditure of EMRS should be in comparison with Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS) since the modeling of EMRS is based on NVS and vigorously pursue with Department of Expenditure to enhance posts for National Education Society for Tribal Students (NESTS) headquarters and for the proposed nine regional offices.
The committee also asked the ministry to remove hurdles in implementation of schemes to enhance budgetary allocation.
“The Committee desired the Ministry of Tribal Affairs need to strictly implement the measures to overcome the difficulties such as non submission of utilization certificates, SNA balances etc. so that the funds earmarked for each schemes are spent by states/UTs in implementation of various schemes,” it said.
The panel also said that the Ministry should ensure that the funds allocated to the Ministry for 2024-25 are fully utilized and enhanced allocated made for 2025-26 is not revised downward at RE stage.
It also suggested that the ministry must immediately address issues such as delay in submission of Utilization Certificates (UC), submission of progress report and DPR etc. by state authorities and take requisite measures to remove technical and procedural bottlenecks, administrative delays, capacity building issues etc. to increase utilisation of funds to support Tribal Research Institutes.