Panipat: Students face difficulty in procuring NCERT books

Tribune News Service

Mukesh Tandon

Panipat, April 16

Students have been facing difficulties in getting NCERT books for classes III, VI, VII, VIII, IX and XII in Panipat and Sonepat. The CBSE has made it mandatory for the schools to prescribe NCERT books in their curriculum this year. The academic year started on April 1, but the books are in short supply.

Delay in supply of books

• There are two main reasons behind the delay in supply of NCERT books — one is that the NCERT finalised its distributors very late this time
• They are usually finalised in November-December but this year, they were chosen in January-February, said a book shop owner.
• As the schools allegedly have tie-ups with private publishers, they didn’t place order from NCERT distributors on time.

As per sources, there was a shortage of books for maths, English, social studies and science subjects for Class VI, maths and science subjects for classes VII and VIII and several subjects of classes IX and XI. There were two main reasons behind the delay in supply of NCERT books — one is that the NCERT had finalised distributors very late this year. Earlier, they were finalised in November-December but this year, they have been chosen in January-February, said a book shop owner on the condition of anonymity.

As the schools allegedly have tie-ups with private publishers, they didn’t place orders with NCERT distributors on time. Schools have designated particular shops in the city for the parents to buy books. A parent said despite knowing this, the authorities don’t act against schools. “As private schools have tie-ups with private publishers, NCERT books are hit,” said a shop owner.

Lalit, a local resident, said his child was in Class VIII and the new academic session had started on April 1 and the school had prescribed maximum books of the NCERT. But new books were not available in shops, despite him visiting several book stores. He finally managed to procure old NCERT books for his child.

Rajesh Chandna, who runs a parents’group that exchanges old books, said there was a shortage of various NCERT books in the market due to which the parents were seeking old books for various classes. Ravi and Happy Juneja, book shop owners, said the NCERT books were not available in the city. There was a huge demand of these books, but parents had to return empty-handed from shops, they said.

Scores of parents were also enquiring about old NCERT books because of the non-availabilty of new books. Atul Chawla, a distributor of the NCERT books, said due to the delay in orders from schools, the supply was hit. He said orders had been placed for the books and some books of Class VIII would reach soon. Apart from this, orders for other classes had also been placed. As the books arrive, they would be supplied equally to all shop owners, the distributor said.

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#CBSE #NCERT #Panipat #Sonepat