This year, many state government-aided and BMC-aided run schools, received at least 20% less stock compared to the number of students in the school.

A principal from Byculla-based school said, “We have a total of 740 students studying in class 2 to class 8, but I received textbooks only for 630 students. I wonder how the department distributes the textbooks. The number of students with class and medium are with the government so why they are not sending the exact number of textbooks.”

Another principal from a Santacruz-based government-aided primary school said that several parents have approached her asking about the shortage of textbooks. “My every day starts with reading parents’ messages asking about the books. Even on Sunday morning, some parents messaged me and asked about the textbooks. I wrote to the education department and requested them to provide the books.”

Parents are concerned about their children’s studies as schools reopened on June 15. Shravan Kotiyan a parent of a Bandra-based private unaided school, also pointed out that this year, books are not available for students from private unaided schools. “I got the books last Friday after the booking was done on June 13 with the bookstore. This is the first time we struggled so much to get books,” said Kotiyan.

Considering the issue, Pradeep Sawant a member of Yuva Sena (UBT) and former senate member of the University of Mumbai (MU) wrote a letter to Pradeep Kumar Dange, director, Maharashtra Primary Education Council. “I wrote a letter on the textbook shortage issue and asked the government to solve this issue immediately. This is unacceptable and if the government fails to provide textbooks in a week, we will start strong agitation across the state,” he said.

Meanwhile, an officer from the Education Council said, “This year is the first time we are facing a shortage of textbooks. However, we are addressing the issue and aim to provide the books within a week.”