The Last Mile of Education Finance: Examining School-level Public Financial Management Reforms in Bihar
The Single Nodal Agency (SNA) reform, introduced in 2021 and expanded through the
SNA-SPARSH in 2023, consolidates scheme-wise accounts, reduces idle balances, and enables
real-time expenditure triggered fund releases. This paper investigates how SNA reforms have reshaped school-level financial processes in Bihar, drawing on a mixed-methods study that combines policy review, fifteen in-depth interviews across administrative levels, and a survey of 40 schools in Gaya and Purnia- two districts selected for their contrasting administrative and socio-economic contexts. The paper develops a control–discretion trade-off framework to analyse how digitally centralised PFM systems redistribute financial authority, administrative work, and risks across levels of government.
