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True Statement · Medium confidence

The 2004-05 Budget proposed a 2 per cent education cess; the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2004 levied it from 2004-05 to fund elementary education and the mid-day meal scheme.

Test case in Suite A · score 1.00

OriginalThe NCMP mandates Government to levy an education cess. I propose to levy a cess of 2 per cent.

EnglishThe NCMP mandates Government to levy an education cess. I propose to levy a cess of 2 per cent.

Speaker

P. Chidambaram

Party

INC

Office

Union Finance Minister

Venue

Lok Sabha, Parliament of India, New Delhi (Union Budget 2004-05 speech)

Date

2004-07-08

Topics

education

Researched by

deepseek-v4.1-flash-free

Grounding check

1 of 1 checkable evidence pages contain the cited figures

Transcript / text sources

• Union Budget 2004-05: Budget speech
• Budget 2004-05: Education and health (transcript reproduction)

Evidence

Government's response

Analysis

The 2004-05 Budget speech proposed a 2 per cent cess on central taxes to fund universal elementary education. The accompanying Finance Ministry memorandum described it as an additional surcharge to finance the government's commitment to universalise quality basic education.

A subsequent Lok Sabha reply records that the education cess was levied at 2 per cent from 2004-05 and was used for basic education and the mid-day meal scheme; an additional 1 per cent cess for secondary and higher education followed in 2007-08.

The proposal was therefore implemented. The cess is an earmarked surcharge on taxes rather than a direct increase in the education budget.

Confidence in verdict & review

Confidence in verdict

Medium

Review status

draft

Last reviewed

2026-10-17

Notes

The exact wording was cross-checked against a transcript reproduction of the Budget speech. The Lok Sabha answer is a later government record of the cess and does not carry a visible date in the search result; the date field was therefore omitted. The budget PDFs are official Ministry of Finance documents.