JEMC Director Arjun Bilash Panta and Ram Chandra Silwal, managing director of the JEMC, on Thursday asked newly-appointed Education Minister Dinanath Sharma to ensure that textbooks printed by the state-owned publishing house do not remain unsold. [break]
“We are capable of printing as many books as the education ministry demands,” Silwal said. “But, the ministry must create an environment for us to compete with private publication houses. Else, the ministry should take up the responsibility for all our unsold textbooks.”
A large number of textbooks printed by the JEMC remain unsold every year.
Last year, about 4.2 million pieces of textbooks remained unsold. Worse still, over 10 million pieces of textbooks had piled up in JEMC go-downs the previous year.
“A large amount of textbooks remain unsold every year despite several precautionary measures and efforts to improve our management because of unscrupulous private publication houses,” Silwal said, adding, “They use low-quality papers to print textbooks so that they can offer more commissions to book dealers. The ministry should either stop this or pay for our unsold textbooks.”
The MoE has made it mandatory for the JEMC and private publication houses to use 70 grammage-papers. However, according to Silwal, most of the private houses use substandard papers and are able to offer up to 45 per cent commissions to dealers.
“We can not offer such a huge commission because we must adhere to the government´s standard. And, we are not subsidized, either. So, our books remain unsold,” he said.
The JEMC officials briefed the new education minister about their problems at a time when the MoE is planning to issue permits to private publication houses for printing and distributing textbooks in other development regions as well. Currently, private houses are allowed to distribute textbooks only in the eastern and western regions.
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