Free book distribution to govt school kids

ALL THESE BOOKS HAD BEEN SAFELY STORED IN UPPER PRIMARY SCHOOL AT MUTTHIGANJ, SAID SANJAY KUMAR KUSHWAHA, BASIC SHIKSHA ADHIKARI (BSA)-PRAYAGRAJ.

PRAYAGRAJ: Free book distribution has been arranged for students of government-run primary and upper primary schools functioning under the Basic Shiksha Parishad.

Books of five subjects for students of classes 4, 5, 6 and 8 have arrived in various districts, including Prayagraj and Varanasi. State education department officials said that the remaining books for around 12.8 million (1.28 crore) students enrolled in over 1.14 lakh primary and for students of around 50,000 upper primary schools spread across 75 districts of the state are expected to come by June 20.

In Prayagraj, the plan is to distribute books to over four lakh students enrolled in 1,001 government-run upper primary and 2,477 primary schools, besides 1 lakh students enrolled in various other government and government-aided schools, madarsas including Kasturba Gandhi Girls’ school and schools run by social welfare department.

“Till date we have received 44,300 books of Hindi, 10,000 books of science and 30,000 books of Sanskrit subjects of class 6. And, 8,700 books of environment subjects of classes 6 to 8, besides 43,000 books of English and 40,000 books of Sanskrit subject of class 4. All these books have been safely stored in upper primary school at Mutthiganj,” said Sanjay Kumar Kushwaha, Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA)-Prayagraj.

He said that all books were expected to come in by June 20. “We plan to provide these books to different Block Resource Centres of the district to be finally sent to different schools for distribution among the students. The date and schedule to distribute the books to students will be decided after the lockdown,” he said. Teachers of these schools said that annual expenditure of around Rs 200 crore in the state, on the books could be curtailed to some extent if libraries are set up in government-run primary and upper primary schools and books of better paper quality get printed and stocked in these libraries in the state.