Textbook aplenty, poor distribution

KATHMANDU, Jan 8: Even as students continue to face a scarcity of textbooks especially in remote districts, almost 300,000 sets of books worth over Rs 50 million are lying unused across the country.



With just a few months remaining for the current academic year to end, a total of 288,000 sets of text books, which were published by Janak Education Materials Limited (JEML), have piled up in six regional and 20 branch offices of Sajha Prakashan, which is responsible for distributing textbooks.[break]



Every set of textbooks, meant for primary level students, consists of 5 different subject-books. Similarly, every set meant from lower secondary and secondary level students consists of 7-9 different subject-books. The total pile, therefore, contains more than 1.6 million subject-books, incurring huge losses to JEML and Sajha Prakashan.



"This is the first time that we have failed to distribute such a large amount of textbooks," Rudra Prasad Neupane, marketing chief of Sajha Prakashan, said. Sajha Prakashan has sold textbooks only worth Rs 50.8 million in this academic year. "This is less by over Rs 20 million compared to last year," he said. "We distributed books worth Rs 80 million last year."



Sajha Prakashan´s failure to completely distributing all textbooks is largely due to the government´s policy to involve private sector in distribution. Four years back, the government decided to allow private sector to publish and supply textbooks in eastern and western regions alongside Sajha Prakashan. The government, however, failed to make it mandatory for private sector to distribute textbooks in remote districts.



As a result, while Sajha Prakashan and private traders have been competing to sell book in cities, students in remote villages have been bearing the brunt of textbook crunch. Private traders are more interested to sell books in cities, where they can provide lucrative commissions to distributors as the cost to transport books in cities is very low compared to far-flung villages with no road connectivity.



Of late, Sajha Prakashan, which uses the profit of textbooks sold in cities to transport them to remote villages, too, seems less energetic to distribute books in every nook and corner. "How can Sajha Prakashan alone distribute books in remote villages when private traders make much profit by supplying books solely to cities," said a Sajha Prakashan official.



According to Dhirendra Khanal, manager of Sajha Prakashan, although the government has allowed private sector to supply textbooks only in eastern and western development regions, private traders have been distributing books elsewhere also. "Private traders are allowed to supply textbooks only in 25 districts," Khanal said. "However, they are going beyond. For instance, they are not allowed to supply textbooks to Janakpur. However, they are in Janakpur, too."



Unsold textbooks at Sajha



Grade 1 35,000 sets

Grade 2 32,000 sets

Grade 3 34,000 sets

Grade 4 36,000 sets

Grade 5 41,000 sets

Grade 6 15,000 sets

Grade 7 25,000 sets

Grade 8 22,000 sets

Grade 9 28,000 sets

Grade 10 20,000 sets

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