Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): The Block Resource Centers (BRCs) of every district have shown poor performance in distributing textbooks to students of government schools. Not a single district has managed to provide books to all the government schools under their jurisdiction.
Umaria tops the list by distributing books to 69% of its students, while Bhopal ranks 39th, with only 9% of government school students receiving textbooks. Alirajpur is the worst-performing district, with not a single book distributed out of the 1,050,355 books provided.
The Rajya Shiksha Kendra is responsible for supplying free textbooks to students from grades 1 to 8 in every district. The Madhya Pradesh Text Book Corporation (TBC), under the Rajya Shiksha Kendra, supplies these books to the BRCs, which are then tasked with distributing them to students. Out of a total of 54,472,420 books provided by the TBC to the BRCs, only 9,091,463 books have been distributed to students, representing a mere 17% distribution rate.
The officials of the Rajya Shiksha Kendra told the Free Press that they have reprimanded the BRCs of every district for the lapses. If the BRCs have provided the books to the students, then they have been asked to immediately submit the details on the official portal, the officials said.
9% distribution in Bhopal
In Bhopal, the TBC provided 662,087 books to the BRC, of which only 62,329 have been distributed, equating to just 9% of students receiving textbooks, as recorded in the portal by the BRCs.
Top ten worst-performing districts
In Alirajpur, not a single book is provided to students. In Sehore, out of 907,172 books, only 1,657 have been provided to the students. In Khandwa, only 1% of students have received their books. In Singrauli, 2% of students have received their books, while in Dhar, the figure is 3%. In Rewa and Jabalpur, 4% of students have received their books. In Gwalior and Tikamgarh, the percentage is 5%. In Katni, 6% of students have received their books; in Panna, 8%; and in both Sidhi and Mandla, 9% of students have received their books.
