The Chandigarh Administration has announced the distribution of free textbooks to all enrolled elementary school students (classes I through VIII) in government and government-aided schools for the academic year 2023–2024 in an effort to promote education and ensure access to learning materials.

The project has a budget of Rs 305.263 lakh, which has been approved under the Samagra Shiksha grant.

All 97,263 elementary school pupils in government and government-aided schools, including 55,860 in primary courses and 41,403 in upper primary classes, are anticipated to benefit from the provision of free textbooks.

Textbooks have been purchased from the Punjab School Education Board and the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). (PSEB).

The Department of School Education, UT, has reported that 18 out of the 20 clusters in the state have already received their textbook distribution.

For the 2023–24 school year, all primary students in government and government-aided schools would receive free textbooks as part of the Samagra Shiksha program, according to the Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE) 2021–22 report.

4,24,875 of the 4,89,910 books that the UT purchased have already been received from the NCERT in New Delhi. Due to revisions in the curriculum for classes I and II and the lack of environmental studies and science textbooks in Hindi for class V, there are still 65,035 volumes that need to be ordered.

Additionally, the agency has stated that 51,000 textbooks, out of the 98,100 that the PSEB had bought, will be acquired over the following two days and delivered prior to the start of the new session in April.

Rs 3 crore will be invested
Textbooks have been purchased from NCERT and PSEB.
Out of the 4,89,910 books ordered, NCERT has already delivered 4,24,875 of them.
The University of Texas will purchase 51,000 books from PSEB in the next two days.