Thiruvananthapuram | Kerala Chief Minister V D Satheesan on Friday said that there was no provision in the PM SHRI agreement which permitted the state to withdraw from it or freeze its implementation.

Satheesan said that according to the Pradhan Mantri Schools for Rising India (PM SHRI) scheme agreement, only the central government and its concerned departments have the power to withdraw from it after giving a month's notice.

"So the claims that it can be frozen are incorrect. There is no such provision in it," he told reporters here at a press conference.

The CM also said that the previous Left administration only sent a letter to the Centre, stating that it was freezing the implementation of the scheme and there was no mention in it of withdrawing from the initiative.

He also questioned why the Left, which signed the agreement to implement the scheme in the state, was asking the UDF to withdraw from the initiative when it itself did not.

"We have no option of withdrawing from it as the Left signed the agreement. Now we have to get the funds, amounting to over Rs 1,100 crore from the Centre. So, it has to be implemented. At the same time, we will ensure that our autonomy to choose the curriculum and select the schools for the scheme are not taken away.

"That is why the Cabinet sub-committee was formed to formulate a suitable response to the Centre," he contended.

Satheesan said that the central assistance was not a charity, rather it comes out of the taxes collected from the states including half of the GST paid by consumers in Kerala.

"So, we are rightfully entitled to those funds which are being denied to us for not implementing the scheme," he added.

Satheesan further said that the previous Left government not only signed the agreement, but justified doing so.

Besides that, the then General Education Minister V Sivankutty, in an article written by him in 2025 for the party mouthpiece, had said that it was unrealistic that if the project is signed, the entire curriculum will have to be changed and implemented as determined by the Center, Satheesan claimed.

Reading the article, he said that Sivankutty had also written that the National Education Policy itself has made it clear that states can continue with their curriculum.

"This is the answer to all the criticism by Pinarayi Vijayan against us on the issue," the CM said.

Satheesan further said that Punjab, which had signed the agreement, wrote to Centre in 2023 saying that it was withdrawing from it, but in 2024 it agreed to implement it.

Vijayan had claimed a day ago that Punjab had withdrawn from the scheme and therefore, withdrawal from the initiative was possible.

During the previous LDF government, a controversy had erupted over the inking of the PM SHRI agreement with the Centre, as CPI(M) ally CPI strongly opposed the initiative, forcing the Left administration to put it on hold.