Madhyamik and Uchchtar Shiksha Kosh (MUSK)

Madhyamik and Uchchtar Shiksha Kosh. Approval has been accorded by the Union Cabinet for the creation of Madhyamik and Uchchtar Shiksha Kosh (MUSK) a non-lapsable pool in the Public Account for secondary and higher education.

The corpus will have all the proceeds from the 1% cess collected by the government under the ‘secondary and higher education cess’. It will be a non-lapsable reserved fund, meaning if the amount collected in a year is not utilized, it would be carried forward. So far, there has been no such provision and cess collections are deemed utilized as part of the budgetary provisions.

The fund may have a corpus between Rs. 3,000 crore and Rs. 5,000 crore, according to human resource development (HRD) ministry estimates.

The fund will be akin to the Prarambhik Shiksha Kosh (PSK) already in place since 2005 to fund elementary education schemes such as Sarva Shikha Abhiyan (education for all). The government collects a separate 2% cess for PSK.

The fund will cater to schemes such as interest subsidy on education loans, education credit guarantee fund, scholarship schemes, girls’ education schemes and a scheme that funds higher education in states.