Free books unavailable to students raised in Bihar Assembly

The issue of free books being unavailable to school students in the current academic session was raised in the Bihar Assembly today, with Education minister Brishen Patel saying that the situation would be rectified by July end.
BJP member Vijay Kumar Sinha raised the issue of students of class II to VIII not getting free books so far.
Congress Legislator party leader Sadanand Singh, BJP MLAs Prem Ranjan Patel and Binod Narayan Jha also expressed concern over the issue and sought action against officials.
The education minister said that the distribution of free books to over two crore students would be done by July end.

Patel said the books distribution was delayed due to a special government programme to lift the intelligence level of students which he said was found to be very poor in a report of Pratham, India's largest NGO in the field of primary education.
Following this, a crash course was held for students of standard II to VIII for two months from April, he said.

Due this special programme, the academic session was delayed to June end this year, he said.
Patel said that almost 60 per cent of the book distribution among students was done and rest would be completed by July 31.

Free books on all subjects for students was a scheme started by former chief minister Nitish Kumar to give a fillip to education.