Chennai: Information obtained from local bodies across the State has revealed their indifference to elementary education, despite abundant funds available for the purpose.

A random sampling of how corporations and municipalities spent their education tax, conducted by members of The Catalyst Trust, an NGO campaigning for education rights, has shown how the local bodies are not using the funds collected for the purpose. Unutilised funds were piling up over the years.

The NGO used the Right to Information Act to petition local bodies to disclose the utilisation pattern of the education tax, collected as a percentage of the property tax under the Tamil Nadu Elementary Education Act, for the past five years.

In Chennai, out of the elementary education tax corpus of Rs. 46 crore available with the Chennai Corporation in 2005-06, only Rs. 27.3 crore was utilised. The local body’s revised budget estimate for educational tax in 2006-07 was Rs. 59.8 crore. It had an unutilised corpus of Rs. 6.4 crore.

For 2007-08, the budget estimate is around Rs. 62 crore in educational taxes, of which the estimated surplus will be about Rs. 15 crore. The pattern is repeated all over the State.

In Kancheepuram, while Rs. 66.5 lakh collected as educational tax was used up in 2005-06, Rs. 61.8 lakh is still unutilised.

While Namakkal collected Rs. 36.3 lakh as education tax in 2005-06, only Rs. 4 lakh was used.

In Pudukkottai, out of the total property tax of Rs. 95 lakh collected in three years, only Rs. 25.6 lakh was spent on education.

While the Athur municipality collected Rs. 18.3 lakh as education tax during 2005-06, only Rs. 8.8 lakh was spent.

In Erode, out of the Rs. 162.82 lakh collected during the same period, only Rs. 9.66 lakh was utilised. The Periyakulam municipality collected Rs. 5.5 lakh as education tax but has not used a single rupee to improve schools.

The same was the case with the Karur municipality, which collected Rs. 38.16 lakh towards elementary education tax and utilised virtually nothing.

In Coimbatore, while Rs. 28 lakh was collected as education tax in 2005-06, only around Rs. 10 lakh was spent. The Mannargudi municipality collected Rs. 15.7 lakh but spent only Rs. 4.3 lakh.

“The same pattern persists over nearly three decades as local bodies have seldom bothered about properly utilising the education tax. If one cumulatively compounded all the money unspent over the years, it will be a mind-boggling amount,” says former bureaucrat A.K. Venkata Subramanian, Trustee, Catalyst Trust.

Adds educationist M. Anandakrishnan: "Unless all taxes created by local bodies are fully utilised, equitable elementary education will be a far cry." "The School Education Department has no say in the collection or utilisation of education tax and they will not be released into the department funds and can only be used by the local bodies," S. Kannan, Director of School Education, said.