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Mumbai

The Nataraja Foundation


1st October’ 2009

Kind Attn : Shri. Kapil Sibal


Minister Of Human Resource Development
Government Of India

Cc : Dr. Manmohan Singh ( Prime Minister Of India )


Shri. Pranab Mukherjee ( Finance Minister , GOI )
Dr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia ( Dy. Chairman Planning Commission, GOI )
Dr. Sam Pitroda, Chairman, National Knowledge Commission, GOI
Smt. D. Purandeswari, Minister of State for HRD, GOI
Ms. Anshu Vaish, Secretary,School Education & Literacy , Ministry Of HRD, GOI
Mr. Ashok Chawla , Finance Secretary, Ministry Of Finance, GOI
Dr. Vijay Kelkar , Chairman , 13th Finance Commission , GOI
All Members of the Planning Commission
All Members of the National Knowledge Commission

Dear Sir,

Subject : The Indian Primary and Secondary Education Megaproject


( Second Letter )

Since your arrival, in what should be, India’s most important ministry within any
government, there has been widespread hope amongst large sections of the
populace that finally we have an HRD minister who is really trying to achieve a
quantum jump for Indian education.

While you have personally, launched several initiatives at all levels within the
education system , there is one area where India has the most serious challenge and
that is primary and secondary education.

This note is therefore about a project that will solve this serious problem in Primary
and Secondary education by making it possible for upto 126 Million Children at any
given point in time to receive a high quality basic education free of cost and without
any recourse to funds already committed under any XI plan. The project has been
sent earlier to the National Knowledge Commission and the Planning Commission on
the 24th of April 2009 ( i.e. Just before the elections ) and they are hopefully still
studying it with the objective of bringing it to your notice.

The entire project ( Executive Summary Attached ) has been designed around the
teacher and its main purpose is to attract the best minds to a career in teaching ( i.e.
project is not designed around the student with just a literacy objective ) . This
scheme therefore is very different from any other project previously conceived within
the Indian government and it will reach far more children than all the other schemes
of the government put together. It is therefore conceptually and in practical execution
and administrative terms far superior and simpler than the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan
( SSA ) and its associated Mid-day meal scheme.
Since the project was submitted in April’2009, there has been a major change to its
financial structure which drastically reduces its funding requirements. In addition to
the original idea of combining urban renewal with providing social infrastructure and
basic education, a new enhanced FSI sharing scheme with differential FSI’s has
been introduced which takes care of any potential litigation issues from stakeholders.
This new structure has therefore cut the need for bootstrapping funds from the
government from US $ 15 Billion ( April Scheme ) to US $ 2-3 Billion without
sacrificing any coverage. Even this $ 2 Billion + is mainly in terms of institutional
support and mostly not in cash expenditure terms.

Under the project , a total of 30,000 New schools will be built between 2010 and 2020
by means of a unique Public Private Partnership Model that will catalyze massive
funds and under a structure that will raise and spend Rs 4,40,000 Crores or US $ 93
Billion over the next 11 years.

The project also has a unique teacher sharing programme as well with each school
sharing teaching resources with 7 other local schools and thereby a total of 240,000
schools will be covered.

The project will , when fully commissioned , have an operating expenditure of


Rs 117,000 crores each year. The financial structure and the detailed project
financials which are available for free download from the Nataraja Foundation
Website ( www.nataraja.org.in ) also provides for this annuity and no extra money will
be required to operate the scheme. All the funds to run this massive project including
the resources for sharing teachers between schools and launching additional 11
EDUSAT satellites are all provided for.

The project however has one major institutional requirement which must be met for
the whole project to become an executable file. The plan specifically requires the
government to create a statutory Special Project Vehicle SPV under an act of
Parliament, which could be named “The Indian Social Infrastructure Corporation ”.
This organization will be headed by an official of the rank and powers of a Chief
Election Commissioner and this new organization will execute the Education
Megaproject consisting of 30,000 New schools outside of the Ministry of HRD. It is
extremely necessary to execute and run this project outside the ministry as India
cannot afford a lack in continuation of policy under future HRD ministers . This is in
fact the biggest gift that you ( Mr.Kapil Sibal, as minister of HRD ) can give to India. If
you really want to achieve something big … let this project be executed outside of
your ministry under the most efficient corporate structure possible …in Critical Project
Mode.

Need for Pilot Projects :

Finally , to provide proof of concept , a project of this size and scale needs a Pilot
project of suitable size and with an all India application. It is therefore necessary to
set up two sample “ Teacher Centric schools “ in each state for a total of 56 + schools
all over India. Each of these 125 acre Pilot projects which will be set up in the most
backward areas will have a rural teachers training facility and a master masons
training facility to train the large number of masons required for fast track execution
( in the following 4 phases ). This will enable the unique environmentally friendly yet
extremely elegant architecture form of the Auroville ( Pondicherry ) and Laurie Baker
( Kerala ) schools to become mainstream in India and will also ensure that this
project, on commissioning in 2020 to be the worlds largest environmental project.
The Pilot projects are essential as they will make it possible to sort out any execution
related issues and conceptual issues behind the project in the trial period. Once the
learning from the pilot projects comes in, the first set of 3,000 schools under Phase I
can be executed very fast coinciding with the launch of the first set of EDUSAT
satellites by ISRO.

All the 56 + Pilot projects can be executed immediately under the ministry of HRD
while the “ Indian Social Infrastructure Corporation “ can be created under a special
ordinance and ratified by Parliament in its next session. Once the statutory
organization is set up , the 56 + pilot projects can be transferred to it and the NKC
can monitor the Pilot projects and recommend changes for execution in phase I .

Indian Social Infrastructure Corporation … Need for Role Clarity

It needs to be understood clearly here that the “ Indian Social Infrastructure


Corporation “ envisaged as above, will after completion of the project’s construction
( in each phase ) hand over the running of the schools in a time bound manner
( schedule provided in project summary ) to PPP concession awardees. On
completion of construction therefore the corporation will become a commission that
will oversee the system in a regulatory capacity. This is true of the hospital projects
as well which will be set up separately. The actual running of the schools will be by
educationists ( i.e the PPP awardees ) who would have won the concession after a
proper and transparent bidding process. With this in mind , the financial structure of
this project has been designed to make it possible for a few retired teachers to come
together and bid for the concession. This will greatly enrich the school system by
bringing in accountability , de-centralization and cultural diversity at the same time.
The project’s unique design basis philosophy which talks about cultural and religious
inclusiveness can be directly downloaded from the Nataraja Foundation website as
stated earlier .

Parliament has recently passed the historic Right To Education Act (RTE) which
makes access to a good basic education for all citizens a fundamental right under the
Indian constitution. Everyone is now wondering where the Rs. 187,000 crores required
for this will come from over the next 5 years. This project solves all those problems at
Zero cost to government of India and without even touching SSA funds.

The Nataraja foundation which is registered with the Planning Commission under the
NGO partnership scheme is very keen to participate in this whole process by setting
up one of the pilot projects either in Maharashtra or in Karnataka as we are native to
these states.

If there are any grey areas in the project that need to be clarified , we shall be very
willing to clear any doubts regarding the scheme .

Thank you for your time.


Sincerely,

Ashish Puntambekar
Trustee , The Nataraja Foundation
www.nataraja.org.in , E Mail : ashish.puntambekar@gmail.com , Tel : 09867612368

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