KOCHI: Though the lockdown derailed the plans of Kerala Books and Publications Society (KBPS) to distribute the school textbooks by April 15, the society is equipped to complete the task before the school re-opening. Though Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, while inaugurating the state-level distribution of textbooks at KBPS, claimed that over three crore textbooks for the 2020-21 academic year have been printed already, a lot of work is still pending.
“Our deadline to distribute the first volume of school textbook was April 15 but due to lockdown, the production had to be stopped completely. However, we are yet to receive any information regarding restarting the printing works. To avoid the delay in distribution, we are planning to send all the printed textbooks to societies. But, we need a special order from the government or wait for the lockdown period to end,” said Surya Thankappan, managing director, KBPS.
According to her, the printing of Volume-1 textbooks will take additional 20 working days. “If we could use our complete resources, the whole printing process can be completed within 20 working days. After that, we have to initiate the printing of Vol II textbooks which has to be distributed before Onam. An action plan will be prepared to meet all the deadlines,” the managing director added.
Meanwhile, the KBPS has approached the state government to hand over the distribution of the school textbooks to the postal department. “The government owes nearly `300 crore to the KBPS. The distribution is burning a hole in the pockets of Society. So, we have approached the government seeking distribution of textbooks through the postal department. Otherwise, the society will plunge into a huge financial loss,” said an official of the KBPS.
