The picture of school and mass education department website from where texbooks can be downladed

Bhubaneswar, April 17: The school and mass education department today uploaded Class X books on its website so that students could download them.

The supply of Class X books in government schools across the state has been delayed this year leading to panic among students and parents.

“Students can now access the books on the website. The books will now be available on the website for free. Both NCERT and Tamil Nadu state board follow a similar practice. This is in addition to books available in paper format,” a senior official of the department said.

The books can be accessed at http://www.odisha.gov.in/schooleducation/textbook.asp.

The books are available in pdf format and can be easily downloaded by students, he added

The board of secondary education decided to change the syllabus of the Class X books and as many as 15 titles were introduced.

According to the schedule, these books were to reach the stands by February — two months before the start of the academic session.

However, the board officials have failed to meet the deadlines and started distribution of books only on April 10 causing the delay and panic.

“Republishing 15 titles involves huge work including writing, review, editing, preliminary DTP, final DTP, printing, cover page designing, binding and distributing the books,” said president of the board of secondary education Dakshya Prasad Nanda adding that at least 4.5 lakh book from each title are required.

While 10 out of the 15 titles have already been distributed, five other titles — life science, geography, history, geometry, Odia grammar — will be reaching soon, said Nanda.

“Since most traders reach Cuttack to purchase the books we have kept 50 per cent for them and the remaining 50 per cent books have been dispatched to Sambalpur, Berhampur, Balasore and Bhubanewar,” said Nanda.

The board officials, however, assured that all the books would reach the students by the end of April. Educationists have lauded the initiative.

“This is a progressive effort by the state government. Students can make use of the Internet to download the books. Besides, the step will curb artificial scarcity of the books in the market. The department, if possible, should allow a publisher to down load and print the book at sell it low prices,” educationist Chitta Baral said.