Visakhapatnam: Students in the city are ru-nning from pillar to post, to try and get their hands on NCERT textbooks.
This academic year, the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) adopted a new initiative to have schools raise indents online, to ascertain the requirement for books.
Despite this, the NCERT book dealers in the city say that they are facing an acute shortage of Class IX and X language textbooks, Class IX economics textbooks, and Class VI history and Hindi textbooks.
NCERT maintains that there is no shortage of textbooks, as it has published 4.25 crore books this year, as per the inde-nts; and the number of vendors has been increa-sed from 400 to 680. But book dealers claim that the supply does not meet their requirement. This indicates that schools may not have submitted accurate requirements.
When the management departments of some sch-ools were asked about the online indents, they said they had already placed orders for books from NCERT and other publishers, through agents, last November itself, before the board circulated its notice in January this year.
The founder and correspondent of a reputed CBSE school said, “NCERT books are very good but the board should not curb the use of private publishers like Oxford. This is hampering the quality of education. Boo-ks from private publishers are prescribed for Classes I to VIII after thorough scrutiny. For board exams, we all follow NCERT books.”
Vinod of Jyoti Bookst-ore, which supplies NCERT books in Vizag, said, “Widespread confusion regarding the mandatory use of NCERT books, which was announced in a CBSE advisory in Febru-ary, has also pushed the demand up. The shortage in supply continues, like last year. We have been trying hard to get the books.”
The owner of another bookstore said, “Many non-CBSE schools are also prescribing the NCERT books. So the shortage is obvious because the supply is decided based on the requirements of CBSE schools alone. Books should be made available to all students, irrespective of their board. We, the dealers, are finding it hard to get books even after making our own transport arrangements.”
