Textbooks on phone: e-Balbharti app to make school bags lighter

The e- Balbharti app has been developed in line with the Maharashtra state board syllabus and will be launched for Class 6 students in June before the new academic year begins.

In a step to reduce the weight of school bags, the Maharashtra State Bureau of Textbook Production and Curriculum Research ( Balbharti), which creates textbooks for schools that follow the state education board curriculum, is coming up with an application. The app will let students read textbooks on their mobiles. But there is no word on semester-wise textbooks and other initiatives promised by the government as part of the school bag policy. The policy was aimed at reducing the weight of bags carried by students to school.

School boy carrying heavy bag. (Natasha Hemrajani /HT photo)

The e- Balbharti app has been developed in line with the Maharashtra state board syllabus and will be launched for Class 6 students in June before the new academic year begins. It will feature the entire textbook content of all subjects. Audio-visual content will be added to the later versions.

The government resolution (GR) on the school bag policy issued in June last year had stated that they will give students tabs, e-books and come up with semester-wise textbooks to reduce the weight of the students’ bags.

However, so far, none of these have been introduced.

“Only e-books will not help in bringing down students bag weight, the government has not yet introduced semester-wise textbooks as promised in the GR,” said Swati Patil, activist, who filed a public interest litigation (PIL) on school bags in the Bombay high court last year.