On a day when she began recruitment for her Memorial Protection Force, Mayawati, the UP Chief Minister, gave a thumbs down for the landmark Right to Education (RTE) Act. (Read: Mayawati spends crores on guards for memorials)

Blaming the Centre for not making any financial allocations, in a letter to the Prime Minister, Mayawati has said that the UP Govt cannot bear the expenses, and that the States should have been consulted before passing RTE.

Mayawati says the Centre can't decide what the state governments should do and that implementing RTE will cost Uttar Pradesh Rs 8,000 crore this fiscal.

She also added that the Centre should bear all the costs.

A nominal ratio of 65 per cent by the Centre and 35 per cent by the State had been settled while passing the Act.

The RTE Act came into force on Thursday and promises to ensure education for all children between 6 and 14, a whopping 22 crore children, out of which nearly 1.1 crore are out of school.