PM SHRI schools in India: what the scheme actually asks of a school PM SHRI

A principal in a Tier-2 town opens the local paper and sees a photo she did not expect: the government higher-secondary school two kilometres away, freshly painted, with a new smart classroom, an Atal Tinkering Lab, and a banner reading "PM SHRI School". For years that school was the one parents left to come to hers. Now it has solar panels, a science lab, free admission, and a government grant behind it. Her question is the honest one every private-school owner is starting to ask: what exactly is this scheme, what does a PM SHRI school have to prove, and what does it mean for a fee-charging school sitting right next to one?

PM SHRI is not a threat to private schools and it is not a marketing slogan. It is a serious, well-funded attempt to make a few thousand government schools genuinely good — and the bar it sets is a useful mirror for any school, government or private, that wants to take NEP 2020 seriously rather than just print it on a banner.

What is PM SHRI and what does the scheme cover?

PM SHRI — Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India — is a centrally sponsored scheme approved by the Union Cabinet on 7 September 2022. Its goal is to upgrade up to 14,500 existing schools run by the Centre, states, and local bodies into exemplar schools that demonstrate NEP 2020 in everyday practice. These are not new buildings; they are existing schools (including Kendriya Vidyalayas and Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalayas) selected to be strengthened into living models other schools can learn from. The scheme runs from 2022-23 to 2026-27, after which states are responsible for maintaining the standards. A PM SHRI school is meant to demonstrate, not just claim, a specific set of things.

What separates a real PM SHRI standard from a painted wall?

The scheme organises everything above into six pillars drawn from NEP 2020: curriculum, pedagogy and assessment; access and infrastructure; human resources and school leadership; inclusive practices and gender equity; management, monitoring and governance; and beneficiary satisfaction. The detail that matters for any school leader is the last three. New paint and a smart TV are visible; what actually moves a school is leadership, honest monitoring, and whether parents trust it. A school that buys hardware but never tracks whether attendance, learning, and satisfaction improved has missed the entire point of the scheme — and the same trap waits for any private school that confuses buying technology with running well.

How are PM SHRI schools selected?

The scheme uses a three-stage 'challenge mode' rather than handing out the label. A school cannot simply apply and receive it.

1. The state signs an MoU. The state or UT first commits, in a memorandum of understanding, to implement NEP 2020 in full. No MoU, no eligibility — which is exactly why a few states are not yet participating.
2. An eligible pool is drawn from UDISE+. The Ministry filters schools that meet a minimum benchmark using each school's UDISE+ data — the same national school-data system every recognised school already files into. Only schools clearing the data floor enter the pool.
3. Schools compete in the challenge round. Eligible schools then have to demonstrate they meet the quality conditions, verified by physical inspection. Urban schools must score 70% or above and rural schools 60% or above to qualify. A maximum of two schools — one elementary and one secondary or senior-secondary — are selected per block or urban local body.

The takeaway: selection is gated by clean, current UDISE+ data first, then by what an inspector can physically verify. A school with messy enrolment records or unfilled UDISE+ fields does not even reach the contest.

What is the PM SHRI budget, and how far has it got?

The scheme carries a total outlay of ₹27,360 crore spread over five years (2022-23 to 2026-27). The Centre's share is ₹18,128 crore and the states' share is ₹9,232 crore, on a 60:40 funding pattern — 90:10 for special-category and Himalayan states, and fully central for UTs without a legislature. In the Union Budget 2025-26, PM SHRI was allocated ₹7,500 crore, up about ₹1,450 crore on the previous year. As of late 2025, roughly 13,000 schools had been selected across phases, and more than 7,500 had been physically transformed into operating PM SHRI model schools, keeping the scheme broadly on course for its 14,500 target by 2027. So this is not a pilot — it is a multi-year, fully-budgeted rollout reaching most districts in the country.

Which states are not participating, and why does it matter?

Because Stage 1 requires signing an MoU to implement NEP 2020, a few large states have stayed out. As of 2026, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu had not signed, and Kerala signed in October 2025 but then put the agreement on hold; Punjab and Delhi have also been in dispute at various points. During 2024-25, the Centre withheld Samagra Shiksha funds from several non-signing states, which made the standoff a real budget issue rather than a symbolic one. For a private-school owner, the practical signal is simple: in states that are participating fully, you will see upgraded government competitors arriving district by district over the next two years; in the holdout states, that pressure is — for now — paused.

What does PM SHRI mean competitively for a private school?

The instinct is to worry about free admission. The sharper read is that PM SHRI quietly redefines what 'a good school' looks like to a parent — and it does so for free, with government weight behind it. When the neighbourhood government school has a tinkering lab, a green campus, art-integrated lessons, and visible learning tracking, the parent's baseline shifts. A private school that still sells itself on a building and a fee structure, while running attendance on paper and 'communicating' through a notice on the gate, suddenly looks dated next to a free model school. The schools that will pull ahead are the ones that can show the same NEP-aligned substance — experiential teaching, real inclusion, tracked outcomes — and prove it to parents continuously, not once a year at the annual function.

What software does a PM SHRI standard actually require?

Strip away the buildings and a striking share of the PM SHRI bar is, in practice, a data-and-tracking problem. Clean UDISE+ figures gate the selection itself. A 'student registry that tracks enrolment and learning progress' is a student information and assessment system. 'Beneficiary satisfaction' and inclusion targets need attendance, communication, and follow-up that you can actually measure. None of this is exotic technology — but it is impossible to demonstrate honestly with registers and WhatsApp groups alone.

Where Inkwelly fits

Inkwelly is a school management system built for Indian schools, and it is squarely useful for the data side of an NEP-aligned standard — whether you are a government school working toward PM SHRI or a private school that wants to match the bar. A clean student information system keeps enrolment, demographics, and the records that feed UDISE+ in one accurate place. Academics and assessment tracks learning progress instead of leaving it to the next exam. Attendance, fees, and parent communication run on the same platform, so 'beneficiary satisfaction' becomes something you can measure rather than hope for. If you are weighing options, our guide on how to choose a school ERP for India and the best school management software in India pillar lay out what to look for. Inkwelly does not 'do PM SHRI' — no software does — but it carries the record-keeping the standard quietly depends on.

“PM SHRI does not just upgrade a few thousand schools. It resets what a parent expects 'a good school' to look like — and that bar is built on clean data, tracked outcomes, and trust, not on paint.”

How to use PM SHRI as a benchmark, whatever school you run

You do not need to be in the scheme to learn from it. Read the six pillars as a checklist and score your own school honestly: Is our infrastructure safe and barrier-free? Is teaching genuinely experiential, or is that just a line in the prospectus? Can we show, with data, that attendance and learning are improving? Do parents feel heard? Government model schools are about to make those questions concrete for every family in your catchment. The schools that thrive over the next two years will be the ones that answered them first — and can prove it.

See how Inkwelly keeps your school's records inspection-ready

From a clean student information system that feeds UDISE+ to attendance, fees, and parent communication on one platform — see what an NEP-aligned standard needs underneath. Book a free, no-pressure demo.