Karwar: Although the state government has said that it has distributed 90 per cent of textbooks to primary and secondary schools across the state, a shortage of 48% of books has been reported at Karwar educational district.

According to sources, only 52% of of books have been received in the district and it has become difficult for students to revise lessons without textbooks as schools were reopened more than a fortnight ago.

Sirsi MLA and former minister VIshweshwar Hegde Kageri had raised this matter in the legislature session and to this, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Tanveer Sait said, “97 per cent printing is complete and around 90 per cent textbooks have been distributed”.

But this does not relate to Karwar because there are 1,240 schools in five taluks of the educational district including two border area Kannada medium schools in Goa and a shortage of books are affecting the studies of students.

A teacher of a government high school said, “we have advised the students to barrow textbooks from their one-year seniors until they get new ones. We are not forcing the students to complete their assignments. We are hoping books will be supplied within a few days."

Sources state that only 3.77 lakh textbook have been supplied by the government whereas the requirement was 7.23 lakh textbooks of all subjects for 1.05 lakh students . 

Karwar DDPI P K Prakash admitted to shortage of textbooks and hoped, “we will get them within a week”. However, many believe it will take another 10-15 days to supply textbooks to every student.