As PM SHRI enters the final year of its approved implementation cycle, the scheme reveals diverse state pathways: cluster expansion, infrastructure bottlenecks, federal contestation, branding negotiations, and basic-service gaps
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The Prime Minister Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) scheme was launched in 2022, with a clear national ambition: to develop more than 14,500 existing government schools into model institutions that would demonstrate the implementation of the National Education Policy, 2020. The scheme envisions PM SHRI schools as institutions that provide safe, stimulating learning environments, improved infrastructure, technology-enabled learning, green school practices, inclusive education, and enriched learning experiences. Besides being model schools, they are also expected to mentor neighbouring schools, serving as enabling sites for wider public-school improvement.
Figure 1: Coverage of PM SHRI
Source: PM SHRI Dashboard
The scheme is now entering the final year of its five-year implementation cycle (2022-23 to 2026-27). As implementation moves forward, PM SHRI offers a window to examine how a centrally designed model-school scheme is being shaped by local priorities, administrative capacity, infrastructure readiness, and Centre-state negotiations in India’s federal system. Although these are not formally declared ‘state models’, they are emerging implementation pathways of the scheme. This article maps and brings them together to examine what they reveal about PM SHRI’s implementation so far and what they suggest for the scheme’s next phase.
Distinct PM SHRI implementation pathways are emerging across eight states: Karnataka, Haryana, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala.
Both Odisha and Madhya Pradesh represent a scale-oriented pathway within PM SHRI implementation. In Odisha, 840 schools have been selected under PM SHRI, with an approved outlay of INR 435.03 crore for 2024–25 and INR 851.99 crore for 2025–26. Odisha’s state budget also shows the scheme being placed within a broader education reform agenda, with an emphasis on transforming schools into centres of excellence with improved learning environments and teaching quality.
Odisha and Madhya Pradesh show the promise and challenge of implementing PM SHRI at scale: both states are using the scheme to bring infrastructure, technology, and new learning components into government schools.
Madhya Pradesh offers a similar case: 799 PM SHRI schools had been selected in the state. Recent reporting suggests that Madhya Pradesh is using PM SHRI to widen the range of facilities and support available in government schools. Alongside ICT labs, interactive panels and digital libraries, the rollout includes Atal Tinkering Labs, vocational courses, counselling, sports and music activities, safety measures, self-defence training for girls and leadership training for principals.
Odisha and Madhya Pradesh show the promise and challenge of implementing PM SHRI at scale: both states are using the scheme to bring infrastructure, technology, and new learning components into government schools.
Karnataka offers an important example of how PM SHRI may move beyond the selected school and influence a wider group through a linkage model. It has selected 585 PM SHRI schools, which have recorded progress across several components: infrastructure has been upgraded in 366 schools, ICT and smart classrooms have been introduced in 15 schools, laboratories have been upgraded in 8 schools, inclusive facilities have been developed in 477 schools, green initiatives have been implemented in 585 schools, and 1,077 teachers have been trained under PM SHRI capacity-building programmes. These schools are now preparing to act as knowledge centres for the state’s learning ecosystem, in line with the NEP’s vision of using school complexes and clusters to improve resource-sharing, governance, teacher support, and student services across schools.
In Haryana, about 250 schools have been selected under PM SHRI, but funds for smart classrooms, digital libraries and other learning facilities are yet to reach these institutions. Some schools are also awaiting the full rollout because their CBSE affiliation process has not been completed, partly because basic requirements such as safety, sanitation and drinking-water certifications remain pending. This case shows that model-school reform cannot leap over basic readiness, and if such readiness is lacking, educational reform can be delayed, even before it begins.
Haryana is also proposing CM SHRI schools on the lines of PM SHRI. While this should be read separately, it shows how the “SHRI” model-school vocabulary is entering state policy. While there can be risks of duplication or fragmentation if the two schemes evolve as parallel labels, aligned well, PM SHRI and CM SHRI could create a wider ladder of upgraded public schools.
Punjab, conversely, shows more fluctuating intent. The state signed the MoU to implement PM SHRI in October 2022, later opted out of the scheme in July 2023, and then opted in again in July 2024. By April 2026, 356 PM SHRI schools had been selected in Punjab, apart from 39 Kendriya Vidyalayas and 23 Navodaya Vidyalayas. This shows the challenge of reconciling access to central funds with state-level concerns over NEP-linked implementation, since Punjab had already invested in its own ‘Schools of Eminence’ programme before PM SHRI. However, once Punjab returned to the scheme, the policy issue shifted from a standoff to execution: whether approved schools, funds, civil works, digital facilities, teacher capacity-building and monitoring are translating into visible improvements in schools.
PM SHRI is similarly caught in federal negotiations in Kerala, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. Kerala formally signed the PM SHRI MoU in October 2025; however, the decision remained contested within the state, with the government reportedly pausing implementation amid objections linked to NEP 2020 and concerns within the ruling alliance. As of March 2026, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal were the only two states that had not signed the MoU to implement the scheme. Tamil Nadu’s resistance has been linked to NEP 2020 and language policy. West Bengal’s earlier objections were linked to branding, especially the PM SHRI prefix in a centrally sponsored scheme where the state also bears a share of the cost. Following assembly elections in these states, the Centre has sought to advance implementation; however, the impacts are yet to be seen on the ground.
These diverse state roll-outs show that school education in India remains a federal domain in practice, even when schemes are centrally sponsored. Accordingly, the implementation of PM SHRI depends partly on whether it can meaningfully align with state capacity, policy alignment, and administrative priorities, while retaining a national commitment to quality, safety, equity and learning outcomes.
Given differences in state readiness, the next phase of PM SHRI should recognise these different starting points while keeping its larger ambition intact. In states where rollout is delayed or contested, the immediate task is to build agreement, clarify conditions, and ensure basic readiness. In states where implementation is already underway, the way forward is to improve the functioning of selected schools and gradually extend their benefits to a wider group of schools. Five recommendations can be made in this regard:
If the scheme can combine national ambition with state flexibility and local delivery, it can move beyond school upgradation and become a practical route to rebuilding public faith in government schooling.
First, states that have not moved beyond the MoU or early rollout should focus first on the time-bound achievement of basic readiness: safety, water, sanitation, staffing, affiliation requirements, fund flow, and administrative clarity.
Second, the Centre should create room for negotiated state adaptation. The experiences of Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Kerala show that PM SHRI cannot be treated only as a technical scheme. It also has to pass through questions of federal concern. Therefore, while a limited set of national non-negotiables can remain, states should have space to adapt implementation language, governance arrangements, and rollout sequencing. If the scheme can combine national ambition with state flexibility and local delivery, it can move beyond school upgradation and become a practical route to rebuilding public faith in government schooling.
Third, in states where rollout is active, PM SHRI should move from model-school creation to neighbourhood-school support. Selected schools can gradually become local resource centres for nearby schools through teacher collaboration, shared facilities, school leadership support, and peer learning through a cluster-based approach.
Fourth, PM SHRI outcomes should measure implementation maturity, not just school selection. A selected model school, a functional model school, and a mentoring model school are three different stages of implementation maturity. The scheme should publicly distinguish between them and avoid the impression that the ‘PM SHRI’ label itself means transformation.
The scheme’s promise will lie not in the prefix but in whether it can turn selected schools into credible anchors of public education reform, useful for their own students and for the wider public-school system around them.
Fifth, and following from the above, the scheme should not focus on becoming infrastructure-heavy. Buildings, labs and digital equipment are easier to report on than teaching quality, student support or classroom culture. Therefore, PM SHRI dashboards should track not only physical upgrades but also teacher professional development, student transition, inclusive culture, effective use of digital resources, and mentoring of nearby schools.
To conclude, PM SHRI’s next phase should focus on both expansion and depth. The scheme’s promise will lie not in the prefix but in whether it can turn selected schools into credible anchors of public education reform, useful for their own students and for the wider public-school system around them.
Arpan Tulsyan is a Senior Fellow with the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Arpan Tulsyan is a Senior Fellow at ORF’s Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED). With 16 years of experience in development research and policy advocacy, Arpan ...
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