Is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious PM-SHRI school project facing a virtual collapse? Such questions are arising following a recent statistic from the Education Ministry. The number of schools upgraded from 5,150 in 2023 to just over 4,500 in 2024 shows a decline. The central Modi government is progressively lagging in upgrading state government schools to PM-SHRI schools across various states. There is also no significant progress in this regard for 2025 so far. These questions are raised based on the information provided by Minister of State for Education Jayant Chowdhury in the Rajya Sabha. The Education Ministry’s report reveals that 5,150 state government schools across the country were upgraded to PM-SHRI schools in 2023. In 2024, this number decreased to 4,667. And in 2025, this number has not even reached 1,500 yet, standing at only 1,180 state government schools. Notably, three states in the country have not yet signed the ‘MoU’ with the Education Ministry’s ‘Department of School Education and Literacy’ to implement the PM-SHRI school project. These three states are Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and West Bengal. Therefore, the Education Ministry has released the aforementioned statistics excluding these three states. The data shows that this year, not a single state government school in BJP-ruled states like Assam, Gujarat, and Maharashtra has been upgraded to PM-SHRI. Only six state government schools in Uttar Pradesh, one in Uttarakhand, two in Tripura, and nine in Haryana have been upgraded to PM-SHRI this year. This indicates a very concerning situation in BJP-ruled states.

The central government has set 10 criteria for upgrading schools to PM-SHRI. State government schools are selected based on these criteria. For example, the school must have its own permanent building, which should not be dilapidated. The school’s safety and security arrangements must be adequate. There must be separate toilets for boys and girls, and proper arrangements for drinking water, among other things.