Maharashtra: Schools staring at new year without textbooks

PUNE: The printing of textbooks by the Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research (Balbharati) has hit a pause.
The delay in the demand from local bodies to procure textbooks and court cases filed by certain paper vendors against Balbharati has led to no paper at the Balbharati press to print the books at present. Every year, the textbook bureau prints over nine crore books. The bureau prints textbooks for all state board affiliated schools from std I to XII.

As per Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan, the local civic bodies should check the number of students enrolled in each school from Std I to VIII in their jurisdictions and send a demand for the books as they are distributed free to the children via Maharashtra Prathamik Shikshan Parishad.
The expenses are borne by the parishad at a prefixed rate with the Balbharati for each class. Sometimes, some of the previous year’s stock remains with the local bodies and students are encouraged to return the books in a good shape after their use so that the next batch can use them. The local body has to minus this amount and send the demand for books every academic year.
“This year, there has been a delay in filling up these details on the portal due to which we do not have an exact amount on the number of books required. However, we had started the printing early on as we had an idea of how much books would be required. There was some surplus paper and other material from last year. In total, till now, we have completed printing of about two-thirds of the last year’s demand. However, at present there is no printing because there is no paper,” Dinkar Patil, director of Balbharati said.
Some vendors went to court against Balbharati over the tendering process for the paper, another official said. Since the matter is in court, Balbharati cannot buy paper and print the remaining copies of textbooks.
“We have requested the court to speed up the hearing of the matter as books need to be distributed at the earliest to the students. However, even if everything falls in place and the decision is in our favour, we would need to give the work-order, then the vendor needs to provide paper and finally it has to be printed which will at least require another one month or so. However, all the textbooks are available online in their pdf module as there is no change in any books since the last year. Hence, students can use the online format till they get physical textbooks,” a Balbharati official said.