During the 2018-19 academic session, nearly one crore unsold NCERT textbooks will become obsolete as texts are being updated for the coming session.
Dismissing textbooks because of updation is nothing new, the extraordinary part is NCERT’s huge inventory of unsold books.
“A rough estimate suggests that Rs 25-30 crore worth of books will become obsolete in the new academic session,” said a senior National Council of Educational Research and Training official.
This is the first big updation of NCERT books in seven years involving all texts. In 2017, NCERT commissioned a print run for 4.6 crore textbooks. HRD ministry sources said nearly a crore of these books have remained unsold.
In 2013, it was decided that data in the textbooks will be updated every year. However, the ongoing updation is a bigger task. An official said, “While books of previous print run becoming obsolete is nothing new, the 2017-18 cushion seems unusually high, resulting in a bigger loss to the exchequer.”