Patna, June 8: A report of the statutory state commission on “common school system” is set to put chief minister Nitish Kumar in a bind because its recommendations have all the ammo to cripple the lucrative business of running private — often elitist — schools in Bihar.

The NDA government would require Herculean effort to implement most suggestions made by the panel headed by former foreign secretary Muchkund Dubey — not merely because of the high costs and elaborate logistics involved — but because it would have to directly confront the powerful private school lobby.

Dubey, who submitted the report to Nitish today, passed the onus on to him by saying: “While constituting the commission, the chief minister never spoke about the desirability of a common school system because that was already an established necessity announced by him. The commission was actually asked to suggest ways to achieve that system and we have done that with all programme details.”

The commission, whose recommendations range on a nearly socialistic system of education, envisages that private schools, even if already affiliated to non-Bihar boards like CBSE or ICSE after obtaining NOCs (no-objection certificates) from the state, will compulsorily have to provide free education up to Class VIII to children from deprived backgrounds.

Moreover, all schools will have to operate in accordance with a system of “feeder area”, which would allow them to admit children living only within a pre-demarcated geographical limit.

“The matter of elitist schools is a very important one. These schools will have to comply with a whole length of norms to be notified by the state after the enactment of a proposed legislation. Obviously, any school which refuses to stick to the regulations will have to close down,” said commission member Anil Sadagopal.

Private schools will have to compulsorily put up their annual financial statements on the notice boards, besides abiding by a uniform system of fees and teachers’ remuneration.

For the government, it is more difficult, perhaps, to digest the fact that the commission has already chalked out a phase-wise programme for achieving the state’s goal of a common school system and asserted that work on its can begin as early as April 2008.