New Delhi, Jun 13 (IANS): The Union Ministry of Education has released Rs 7,622 crore so far in 2021-22 to the States and Union Territories (UTs) under the Samagra Shiksha scheme, said Union Education Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank on Sunday.

This amount has been released for the smooth continuity of free books, uniforms, running of Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas, education, vocational education, information and communication technology and digital initiatives.

Nishank said the priority of the present government is to promote 'ease of governance' and 'ease of doing business'. For this we had launched a PRABANDH system last year to help conduct 'Padho and Badho' meetings to approve the annual plans of the states under the Samagra Shiksha scheme.

This has enabled the states to upload plans and everyone to view and evaluate it from remote/own locations with automatic compilation by the system, the Union Education Minister added.

This yielded better results at less cost. It was extremely difficult to achieve it in physical mode, Nishank said.

Nishank said till now under the Samagra Shiksha scheme for 2021-22, Rs 7,622 crore has been released to the states and Union Territories on Sunday.

Samagra Shiksha is an overarching programme for the school education extending from pre-school to class 12.