Explained: Why Rajasthan has 611 govt schools without buildings despite ₹68,989 cr education budget

The incident has exposed the layers of problems in the desert state. 

Rajasthan has allocated ₹68,989 crore to Education, Sports, Arts and Culture from the state budget for 2026-27. The allocation is 17.1% of total expenditure, which is higher than the 14.5% average allocation by states in 2025-26, and 6% higher than the state’s revised education expenditure of ₹65,260 crore in 2025-26. 

Yet, 611 government schools are functioning without buildings, as per UDISE+ 2025-26 data.

A pattern, not an isolated case

The 611 figure revealed by the government in the state assembly isn’t Rajasthan’s first infrastructure failure this year. In August 2025, part of a government school building in Jhalawar district collapsed, killing seven children. 

That triggered a district-level survey, whose findings School Education Minister Madan Dilawar presented to the Assembly on January 30, 2026: 3,768 government school buildings identified as dilapidated (2,558 formally declared so, 1,210 pending declaration), and 41,178 of the state’s 45,365 government schools flagged as needing major repairs.

What the money actually funds

Though the budget for education in Rajasthan is ₹68,989, it isn’t money set aside for construction. It covers Education, Sports, Arts and Culture as a whole — salaries, scholarships, higher education and school programmes alongside physical assets. Of the total sum, ₹13,768 crore goes to Samagra Shiksha and ₹2,092 crore to mid-day meal schemes.

The capital-versus-revenue split matters here. Rajasthan has allocated ₹53,978 crore in capital outlay for 2026-27, the portion of spending that actually creates assets like buildings against ₹3.50 lakh crore in revenue expenditure, which covers recurring costs. Rajasthan has a track record of underspending even that capital allocation: actual capital outlay was 31% below budget in 2024-25, and the revised estimate for 2025-26 came in 27% below the original budget estimate.

On the infrastructure-specific spending: the Assembly was told in January 2026 that ₹175 crore had already been sanctioned in the 2025-26 budget for major repairs across 2,000 schools, and that proposals worth ₹1,998.24 crore for new construction at 1,680 dilapidated schools had been sent to the Union Ministry of Education, still awaiting approval. 

That approval isn’t a formality — new construction under Samagra Shiksha is centrally co-funded, and every state’s annual infrastructure plan must clear the scheme’s Project Approval Board, chaired by the Secretary of the Department of School Education and Literacy, before central funds are released.

For 2026-27, Rajasthan has budgeted ₹550 crore for repair and renovation of more than 2,500 schools, and ₹450 crore for construction of buildings at schools that currently have none or are operating from dilapidated structures. It has also announced ₹2,500 crore a year — ₹12,500 crore over five years — for broader infrastructure and maintenance, to be drawn from multiple sources including the District Mineral Foundation Trust, Samagra Shiksha, state funds, VB-G-RAM-G, MP/MLA Local Area Development funds, SDRF and CSR (government reply reported by The Indian Express, August 22, 2026).

Bihar tells a similar story

Rajasthan isn’t the only large state with this problem.

In July 2026, JD(U) MLA Manjeet Kumar Singh told the Bihar Assembly that 2,294 primary and middle schools, 703 high schools and 3,000 higher secondary schools across 26 districts are functioning without their own buildings. Chief Minister Samrat Choudhary responded that all such schools would be given land for permanent buildings within six months.

The Bihar and Rajasthan figures shouldn’t be directly compared. But the budget comparison is worth setting alongside them. Bihar has allocated ₹70,141 crore to Education, Sports, Arts and Culture in 2026-27 — slightly more than Rajasthan in absolute terms, and 21.7% of its total expenditure against Rajasthan’s 17.1%. Its Samagra Shiksha allocation is ₹12,107 crore, against Rajasthan’s ₹13,768 crore (PRS, Bihar Budget Analysis 2026-27, updated August 21, 2026).

State Education allocation, 2026-27 Share of total expenditure Samagra Shiksha allocation

Source: Rajasthan and Bihar Budget Documents 2026-27; PRS Legislative Research, both updated August 21, 2026.

What UDISE+ actually shows

Budget share doesn’t map cleanly onto infrastructure outcomes. 

Bihar, despite the 2,294/703/3,000 buildingless-school disclosure in its own Assembly, reports toilet and electricity functionality above Rajasthan’s on this table — a reminder that “no building” and “poor facilities at existing buildings” are separate problems, and a state can be weak on one while performing well on the other. 

Rajasthan allocates a higher share of its budget to education than Madhya Pradesh or Uttar Pradesh, yet trails both on functional electricity.

The picture on the ground, meanwhile, isn’t confined to these two states. Since July 2026, students in at least 10 states and 25 districts — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Punjab and Uttarakhand among them — have staged protests over missing teachers, unsafe buildings, and shortages of water, electricity and toilets, invoking rights under the RTE Act, 2009 and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The real question 

Whether it’s Rajasthan’s dilapidated classrooms or Bihar’s missing facilities, the core issue remains the same: public spending matters far less than how much of it turns into real, safe infrastructure for students.