RAJBIRAJ: It has been almost a week into the new academic session, but students studying in community schools here in Saptari have not get textbooks.

Textbooks had arrived in the district about a month ago, but the District Education Office is yet to distribute the free textbooks to the students.

Teachers have complained of difficulty in conducting classes without textbooks. But the textbooks are lying at some depot of Janak Education Materials Centre in Rajbiraj.

“The JEMC headquarters had sent the books by setting up a depot about a month ago,” said Bishnu Prasad Chaulagain, in-charge of JEMC Rajbiraj depot, adding, “The books haven’t been sold as expected.”

“Out of eight booksellers listed with the JEMC, not a single one has come to buy books for the new academic session,” informed Chaulagain. According to the data, the district needs 44,000 sets of books. “Only 2,000 sets have been sold so far,” said Chaulagain.

Gopikrishna Yadav, proprietor of Ramlaxman Books Store in Rajbiraj, conceded that they have not bought books from the centre as the schools are yet to approach them for the same.

Similarly, Prashuram Yadav, principal of Nakati Higher Secondary School, Rayapur, said the children were studying without textbooks and stressed that the books should reach the students at the earliest.

District Education Officer Laxmi Prasad Bhattarai, on his part, informed that the budget was yet to be released. “The books will be easily available to all students once the budget is release,” he said.

Textbook crisis has been a perennial problem for long, as children do not get them even after weeks, sometimes months of academic session.