Several school students in the twin cities have been left in the lurch owing to non-availability of prescribed textbooks in local bookstores.
Ever since the new academic session began in the second week of June, acute shortage of textbooks has hit students hard. ‘No stock' is the standard refrain from many shopkeepers when parents and their children enquire about textbooks of various subjects and languages.
Students complained that textbooks of seventh, eighth and ninth classes were not available in the market. Seventh-standard students could not get English, General Science, Social Studies and First language Hindi textbooks till now. Almost similar was the situation with the eighth and ninth classes, they said.
Officials of Andhra Pradesh Government Textbook Press, however, claimed that steps were taken to supply books to the students. Press In-Charge Director James said that 5.35 crore textbooks from first to tenth classes covering English, Telugu, Urdu and Hindi languages were printed after receiving a letter from the Directorate of School Education. “We have dispatched 90 per cent textbooks to the government schools,” he said. Efforts were on to send the remaining stock by this month-end, he added.
According to Mr. James, supply of textbooks to private schools has been entrusted to four publishers. Shopkeepers have to submit a demand draft to procure the required stock, but delays on their part was leading to shortage of books in the market.
First-year Intermediate students were also facing scarcity of civics, economics and commerce textbooks due to spurt in the demand.
