Bhubaneswar, April 9: Students in most CBSE schools across the state are struggling to keep up with classroom lessons because their prescribed National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) textbooks have gone missing from local bookstores.
“I have been attending school without mathematics, physics and biology books. My father and I have been going from one place to another hoping to find the books but in vain,” said Manisha Nanda, a Class XII student of Kendriya Vidyalaya No. 1 here.
Arts lecturer Annada Shankar Satpathy, who had come to the city from Baripada to buy textbooks for his niece, said he could find some books but not the complete set. “No one is able to say when the books will be available,” he said.
Bookshop owners said the crisis had been prevailing over the past three months. “The last stock had come in January, and even that was inadequate. Many parents are forced to buy pirated books, which cost a lot more,” said S.K. Mishra of Pragyan Books on Janpath.
Government-appointed distributors of NCERT books alleged that the short supply was “man-made”. “We suspect that the private publishers, in connivance with NCERT officials, are creating this delay to promote sales of the pirated books,” said a local book distributor.
They said though the central government had appointed more NCERT distributors for Odisha, the supply of books had not increased. “The scarcity has been persisting for more than two decades but it has become acute over the past three years,” said one of them. Akhaya Kumar Bal of Gyan Bharati, one of the oldest distributors in the state that supplies textbooks to nearly 90 shops across the state, said he had only received 30 per cent of the order he had placed.
“Only 20 of the 80-odd titles are available at the NCERT regional office in Calcutta. In a particular title, if we had asked for 5,000 copies, they are providing us with only 500. Books of important subjects such as science and mathematics are not available. Since the transportation costs are so high, we cannot afford go to Calcutta to get less than half the stock,” said Bal.
He said while books by private publishers were flooding the market, the government, despite its resources, could not ensure that the books reached students on time.
“This is not a problem with just my network. None of the other distributors have the books either. The government must take serious note of this. Schools too must place their orders at least three months in advance,” Bal said.
Principal of DAV Public School-Chandrasekharpur K.C. Satpathy said classes at his school would start from Thursday and if the students did not find books, they would be given photocopies of the chapters.
A teacher of another CBSE school said since NCERT books were published in Delhi, where school sessions mostly begin from July, a major share of the books are published in May-June to meet the requirement.
“So, they supply the first portion of the publication to other states where the new session starts in April,” the teacher said.
