Demand high but supply low: Fake NCERT books flood NCR markets

GURGAON: CM’s Flying Squad has seized 7,000 illegally printed copies of NCERT books in markets across Gurgaon, Faridabad and Palwal over the past week, raising worries about a shortage in supply even as the new academic session has begun.

Teams of the squad seized 5,600 books from a shop in Faridabad and 1,200 from Palwal. Another 200 books were seized from two shops in Gurgaon’s Sadar Bazar on Saturday.

DSP Indejeet Yadav of the squad said on Sunday that they are finding many copies of NCERT books in the market.

“But the total number of books copied from the original NCERT books will only be known after an investigation. Multiple raids have been conducted in many districts to confiscate fake books,” he said.

According to teachers and officials, NCERT’s empaneled publishers have not been able to meet the demand for books for the past few years.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) in 2018 made it mandatory for schools to use only books prescribed by NCERT. These can only be printed by empaneled sellers. There are 90 authorised wholesalers in Delhi, and 74 in Haryana, including 13 for Gurgaon and Faridabad.

According to NCERT officials, some books of Class 3 subjects are yet to be released, and those of Class 6 are pending as well because the syllabus was changed after the last academic session.

NCERT director Dinesh Prasad Saklani said they will publish the updated syllabus online, so students don’t have to wait for the books. “We started providing CBSE with Hindi, Maths, English and Urdu textbooks for Class 3 from last week. New subjects like arts and physical education will be added. All materials for both classes will soon be accessible online to schools and hard copies will be available latest by April 15,” Saklani said.

Parents said they were worried that their children would fall behind in their studies.

“My two daughters are in classes 3 and 6, and they have already started going to school. But they don’t have the books. For over 15 days, we have been hunting for books in almost every market in the city. I even went to Delhi and Noida to find them, but couldn’t,” said Mukesh Kumar, a resident of Sector 43 in Gurgaon.

Schools have asked parents to wait for some time.

On Sunday, teachers of CBSE-affiliated schools admitted that illegal copies aren’t uncommon.

“At the end of the academic session last year, I found a book with one of my students. Its pages and ink indicated that it was a photocopy of the original book. Though there was no change in the content and the book had an NCERT watermark,” said a teacher from a school in the city.

A principal of another private school in the city said illegal printing houses give higher commissions to vendors than NCERT-empaneled publishers.

“Commissions can sometimes range from 30-35% to encourage distribution of these copies. It’s much higher than the 15-20% commission given by NCERT-authorised publishers,” the principal said.

Rashmi Malik, principal of Salwan Public School in Gurgaon’s Sector 15, said parents don’t mind buying illegally printed copies as they are often sold at lower prices than the MRP.

“If a parent gets an NCERT watermarked book at a lower price at one shop compared to the other, they would prefer to buy that. It would not cross their mind to double check if the book is an original print,” she said.

Malik explained that NCERT doesn’t have a figure for the number of students it has to provide books to as states, Centre and education boards have separate databases.

“We currently have to register ourselves and our students on several portals like MIS (Management Information System) portal by the Haryana govt, UDISE+ (United Digital Information on School Education) portal by the Centre, and OASIS (Online Affiliated School Information System) by CBSE. This database needs to be streamlined. Govt is working on it, but until then, NCERT won’t have an exact idea of the number of students it needs to supply books to,” she said.

Malik warned that circulation of illegal copies could end up tweaking the books’ content.

NCERT officials acknowledged that there were several unauthorised publishers who were taking books available online and printing them.

“The public is requested to kindly stay away from such textbooks or workbooks as their content may be factually incorrect as well as against the basic philosophy of NCF (National Curriculum Framework) 2023. Any individual who comes across such pirated textbooks or workbooks should immediately inform NCERT,” said Rajesh Kumar, deputy secretary and public relations officer of NCERT.