NISA demands Mr Arun Jaitley, Finance minister, India, to release the RTE reimbursement amount to schools and challenge the Exemption under section 10(23C) (iiicd) for “Not for profit” purpose education societies


10 August 2018, New Delhi: The largest congregation of budget private schools in India, National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA) led by Kulbhushan Sharma, President, NISA and supported by Members of Parliament Mr. B Vinod Kumar, Kareemnagar Constituency, Telangana; Mr. Jitender, MP, Andhra Pradesh; Mr. Prakash and Mr. Balaiah met the Hon’ble Finance Minister Mr. Arun Jaitley at the Parliament, to raise their demands ‘to release the RTE reimbursement amount to schools and challenge the exemption under section 10(23C) (iiicd) for “Not for profit” purposeeducation societies.

The delegation submitted the representation and had a detailed discussion on these issues with Mr. Jaitley, who in turn gave his assurance that he will bring fair treatment to the budget private schools and support the children studying in these schools across India.

Elaborating on the demand, the national president of the alliance, Shri Kulbhushan Sharma claimed that the Right to Education Act is a political fraud and NISA has been regularly advocating for its reform, but no political party has heeded it yet. Budget private schools across India have accepted the act and they are giving admissions under RTE Act 2009 Section 12 (1) (C). But the battle between the state government and central government on the budget and as well as on releasing the money has been a problem and schools don’t get timely reimbursements. The delays make their mere existence a challenge.

Secondly, this non-transparency creates misunderstandings between parents and school management. The parents are not aware of the non-re-imbursement of EWS category expenses by the government, which inadvertently leads to the schools hiking the fees of general category students, to meet their ends, while continuing to provide quality education.

NISA also demanded a keener look at the exemption under section 10(23C) (iiicd) for “Not for profit” purpose education societies. Senior members of the alliance requested Mr. Jaitley to not overlook the extreme injustice meted to private schools by restricting the limit of exemption to 1 crore. They brought to his kind notice that the cost of inflation index in 1998-99 was 351,which had subsequently increased to 1125 by the year 2016-2017. According to the mentioned figures, the limit should be Rupees 3,20,51,282/-. NISA urges the government to kindly calculate and fix the exemption to the present inflation rate and enhance the limit to 4.5crores.

About NISA

The National Independent Schools Alliance (NISA) is a platform that brings together budget private schools (BPS) from across the country to give them a unified voice to address their concerns about regulatory challenges and to facilitate quality improvement in schools. As of today, NISA represents 60,000 schools from 36 state associations which cater to the needs of 22 million children at an average of 400 children per school.