Load is off, but government school students in Jharkhand aren’t exactly celebrating. Take Sudha Kumari, for one. This Class VIII student goes to school everyday at Rajkiya Balika Vidyalaya at Doranda in Ranchi. But she hasn’t been carrying any books since she was promoted on January 2.Ramesh Munda, a Class X student at Rajkiya Prathmik Vidyalaya at Sonachippi village in Gumla, is not travelling light. He carries old books for Hindi, English and Physics gifted to him by his uncle’s neighbour. Ashok Singh, a student of Class VI at Rajkiya Madhyamik Vidyalaya at Piska village in Ranchi, turned out smarter. He procured xerox copies of the books prescribed by the CBSE to make do with. NEW DELHI: The NCERT on Wednesday said there was no shortage of text books in the country. Describing the complaints it received about shortage of text books as ‘‘unwarranted’’, NCERT in a release said: ‘‘All the text books for classes I to XII, except class XI, are already supplied to the agents through out the country.’’ The NCERT, which has already issued a warning to all its agents in the country regarding the complaints, said the text books of Class XI will be out after the Class X result. (PTI) Kumari, Munda and Singh are among over 30 lakh students in the Class I-X bracket of the state government-run primary and secondary schools in Jharkhand. None of them has got to smell new books of their respective classes because they are not available in the market even more than one month after their new academic session (2002-03) officially commenced on April 1.These government schools used to follow the syllabus approved by the Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB) till 2000. After Bihar was divided, the Babulal Marandi government set up the Jharkhand School Examination Board, which decided to adopt the CBSE’s syllabus on April 12. Under the BSEB syllabus, the books were printed by Patna-based Bihar Text Book Corporation whereas the books prescribed by the CBSE syllabus are printed by the New Delhi-based NCERT.The NCERT reportedly sells about Rs 40 crore worth of books every year. Now, with the JSEB adopting the CBSE syllabus, it has gained an additional market of Rs 60 crore in the state. ‘‘We don’t have resources to cater to the demand of so many students,’’ says Upendra Singh, Jharkhand state NCERT Books Distributors’ Association. Having no stock to meet the demand, the NCERT was forced to ask for an advance of Rs 15 crore from the state government to make textbooks available.‘‘We had no alternative. We have decided to hand over a cheque of Rs 15 crore to the NCERT,’’ says an IAS officer preferring anonymity. The decision was taken by Education Minister C.M. Prasad in consultation with Marandi on May 10. As per the agreement reached between the state government and NCERT, the latter will supply textbooks for Classes I-X through its chain of distributors. It will also provide the former with Rs 15 crore worth books for distributing free of cost among students belonging to STs, SCs, and Backward Castes, says Prasad.In the dark about the NCERT-government deal, students like Ramesh Munda have every reason to be apprehensive. ‘‘In the absence of books, we will never be able to compete with the students of private schools, where almost one-fourth of the CBSE syllabus has already been taught,’’ he says. His father Randhir Munda is understandably hassled: ‘‘We had welcomed the change to English medium under the new syllabus. But what education can one expect without textbooks?’’
