Ranchi, July 21: Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC) lodged an FIR today against a publishing house for printing poor quality school textbooks, the first of its kind action by the state education department intended to signal a zero-tolerance policy towards shoddy work.

According to JEPC administrative officer Mukesh Kumar Sinha, the formal complaint against National Printers was lodged today at Doranda police station, based on the recommendation of a special committee formed recently to monitor quality of textbooks.

Senior JEPC official Pramod Kumar Sinha, who is looking into the issue, said they had outsourced the work of publishing textbooks meant for classes III, V, and VII to National Printers. But random quality checks revealed printing issues, especially with the text that was extremely light. Some of text in books were so hazy that they were illegible.

Of the 40 lakh textbooks, worth around Rs 11 crore, printed by the firm, six lakh were meant for Class III.

"We found poor printing in Hindi, maths and social sciences books," said Pramod, adding that they had ordered random quality checks in all 24 districts of the state and that quality issues had been reported from several places.

"In some districts, the Hindi books were barely readable owing to excess use of ink, while in other districts, Maths and social studies books threw up similar problems. Also, in many books, the printing was so light that one can't make out what is written. It's a serious lapse," said Pramod.

Proprietor of National Printers Krishnakant Kedia expressed shock at the JEPC's complaint, but pointed out that the state department ought to have at least summoned him before going to the police.

"When I came to know about what had happened, I rushed to the JEPC office this morning. I was told that some books printed by us were of poor quality. That is possible as printing is mechanised and some technical fault may have happened. Had officials brought this to my knowledge earlier, I would have printed fresh books," Kedia said, adding that he was yet to get paid for all the books his firm had published this year.