Ram Chandra Silwal, managing director of JEMC, told Republica on Friday that printing of school textbooks will most likely halt from Monday next week due to the shortage of paper rolls.[break]
“We have just eight metric tons of paper rolls left as of Friday,” Silwal said, adding, “As we use at least six metric tons of papers rolls every day, we are unlikely to continue printing of textbooks from Monday.”
While JMCC is not in a position to print more textbooks, students, mostly in remote parts of the country, are facing an acute crisis of textbooks. “The shortage of textbooks is so deep that it is very difficulty for me to face school headmasters,” says Dhirendra Khanal, chief of western regional office of Sajha Prakashan. “The JEMC has not supplied adequate textbooks.”
According to Rudra Prasad Neupane, marketing chief of Sajha Prakashan, JEMC has supplied only 2.7 million sets of textbooks. “This year´s demand for textbooks roughly stands at 3.9 million.”
“If we manage to buy more paper rolls, we will have no problem at all,” Silwal said. “We are capable of printing 1.2 million sets of books within just a few days.” The textbooks crisis deepened after the Ministry of Education (MoE) foiled a bid by the JEMC to purchase more paper rolls required for printing books.
Textbooks shortage had worsened after a recent decision of the government to provide free-of-cost books to all students up to grade ten.
“The government´s decision came when barely two months were left for the start of the new session,” Silwal said. “We could still have overcome the problem had we been allowed to buy more paper rolls.”
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