Tapas Majumdar Committee

Tapas Majumdar Committee was set up by the NDA Government in 1999 to look into the financial implications of operationalising the 83rd Amendment Bill introduced by the United Front government in 1997, seeking to make the right to free and compulsory education up to the age of 14 a fundamental right. The 83rd Amendment Bill was renamed the 93rd Amendment Bill and significant changes were incorporated in it. The Tapas Majumadar committee recommended that even children belonging to the poorest sections of society must receive education that was comparable in quality with the best. The Committee also suggested a required expenditure of around Rs. 1.37 lakh crores over a ten year time frame (1998-2007) to bring all the children in the 6-14 age groups under the purview of school education by 2008 under its financial memorandum. It added that there should never be a national scheme of recruitment of para teachers, and that true community participation in the affairs of the school must be aggressively facilitated.