Minister of state for Education, Deshmukh, who attended the conference, today admitted that neither HRD minister Murli Manohar Joshi nor Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee gave any concrete assurances about Maharashtra's demands. ``The state government wants to extend free educational facilities to girls up to the graduate level, including professional courses. The Union Government has to bear the extra financial burden for providing these facilities to over 16 lakh girl students in the state,'' Deshmukh said. The government was asked to prepare a package for this scheme, and the union government was to study this proposal, he added.

Deshmukh had also asked for assistance in different schemes like Operation Black Board, theCLASS project and National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education. ``I requested that these schemes, especially the mid-day meal scheme, be extended to all non-aided schools in the state and to municipal schools in Mumbai. We want to implement these schemes in 103 talukas as against the present 80 talukas. I was told that the demands will be thought over seriously,'' Deshmukh added. The state government had also asked for a whopping Rs 2,100 crore aid from the Union Government for making elementary education a fundamental right. "This would mean opening new schools, constructing buildings, recruiting teachers and providing other infrastructure. But there is no firm answer from the government on this," he said.

The only proposal which received a positive feedback was that of setting up a National Elementary Education Mission to implement universal elementary education in a time-bound framework. A committee has been set up on this issue, which includes a representative from the state. Deshmukhalso announced that the state government would include environmental studies as a compulsory subject in the curriculum from the next academic year. ``The subject will be taught to students of class five to 10. Students' performance will be judged in grades at the end of the year,'' he said.