State board textbooks to be available in shops soon

Even as there is uncertainty over the commencement of the new academic year in schools across the state, Maharashtra’s school publication bureau Balbharti has started

Even as there is uncertainty over the commencement of the new academic year in schools across the state, Maharashtra’s school publication bureau Balbharti has started the distribution of textbooks for academic year 2020-21.

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While 57.3 million books for Class 1 to Class 8 are being distributed to schools under the free books scheme, the bureau has also started sending books upto Class 12 to distributors and book sellers from Monday.

“We need to ensure that that there is no rush at the state’s depots if distributors come to collect them owing to the current lockdown situation. The bureau thus introduced an online registration system for sellers. They can raise their demand on Balbharti’s website and also make online payments for the books. The distributors can then collect the books from the depots, so that when the shops open, they would be made available to students,” read a release sent by the bureau.

Balbharti will distribute 38.7 million books through state’s depots and private sellers.

“In Green and Orange zones, shops are able to sell the books and students can pick them physically. In Red zones, some distributors are doing home deliveries at the local level,” said Vivek Gosavi, director, Balbharti.

Meanwhile, the PDFs of textbooks for Class 1 to Class 12 have witnessed 8.1 million downloads on Balbharti’s website. “We have got a very good response and are happy that even the books of revised syllabus could reach students even in such a difficult situation,” said Gosavi.