Different state governments of India have notified through Government Orders (GOs) the amount they will pay out in reimbursement to private schools for each RTE child the school admits. For example, Tamil Nadu has fixed the reimbursement amount at Rs. 2351 per pupil per month; Delhi at Rs 2225, Himachal at Rs. 1593, Uttarakhand at Rs 1380, Karnataka at Rs. 1333, Rajasthan at Rs 1252, Bihar at Rs. 465, and Uttar Pradesh at Rs 450 per month per child. These amounts are meant to represent the states’ per pupil expenditure in their respective government elementary (primary + upper primary) schools. However, there has been some doubt and dismay about the accuracy of these estimates, and also some research estimating per pupil expenditures in the different states of India in Dongre and Kapur (2016), World Bank (2016) and NIPFP (2017).

The NIPFP (2017) found that the Uttar Pradesh government's actual per pupil expenditure in 2014-15 on its government and aided schools was Rs. 1529 per month. If this Rs.1529 estimate were to be inflated up to 2018-19 by 10% per annum, the per pupil expenditure today would be equivalent to Rs. 2239 per month on account of the increase in expenditure alone. If the fall in enrolment from 2014-15 to projected enrolment in 2018-19 is taken into consideration, then the average per pupil expenditure as per NIPFP would be Rs.2652 per month in 2018-19. This can be compared with the Rs. 450 pm upper limit of reimbursement set by the Uttar Pradesh government in June 2013, which has remained at the same level until 2018-19.

This short paper seeks to estimate the per pupil expenditure in government elementary schools in Uttar Pradesh using the government’s own expenditure data and enrolment data.