With the introduction of the law, the onus of providing compulsory free education to children from 6-14 years of age falls on the state government.

“It is a grinding task for the state government, but it is committed to go ahead with it with whatever resources it has,” said School Education Minister Partha De.

The CPM-led government has often criticised the centralising provision of the Bill.

De claimed the chief minister has written to the Union HRD ministry seeking some clarifications and underlining reservations about certain clauses in the Bill.

“We will identify out-of-school children in each block and try to bring them back to schools. We have about 70,000 schools in the state,” said the minister.

But what the government considers an arduous task is to bring the children who never enrolled in a school at par with regular children in the same age group, as laid down in the Bill.

Another worry is meeting the optimum infrastructure of the existing schools in the state. “A schedule in the Bill claims schools will have to have a playground, a boundary wall and other infrastructure which we did not have in all schools. In case the schools do not ensure adequate infrastructure in the next three years, their affiliation would be cancelled,” the minister said quoting from the draft of the Bill. “Even if we put the entire budget of the state government, it is not possible,” De said.

The Bill also has a provision for all schools allotting 25 per cent of their seats to children from economically underprivileged families. The state government can wield control over the government-aided and affiliated schools but it is in a fix on implementing this for CBSE and ICSE schools.