VIJAYAWADA: Tuesday was a special day for schoolchildren. School campuses that reopened for the new academic year teemed with life, with new faces crowding around and the familiar sound of the chalk screeching the blackboard. The sense of being back in the classroom was, indeed, exhilarating for many students.

The children experienced a strange mix of joy and sorrow. They met friends again after a gap of over a month and returned to an endless phase of homework, tests and project works. But not many could experience the joy of thrusting textbooks in their new schoolbags and flaunt their `loaded assets'.

True to the annual tradition, textbooks have failed to reach the schools in time. While government officials churn out statistics to claim that they have supplied a huge number of textbooks to meet the requirements, retailers selling the books to students of private schools depend completely on private distributors.

Demand-supply gap

"Our requirement is 27,68,760 textbooks for distribution in government, municipal and aided schools. We have so far received over 19 lakhs of the books, while we need another 7 lakh-odd textbooks," said in-charge District Education Officer V. Premanandam.

He said it might take another 10 days for the remaining stocks to reach the mandal education officers.

Booksellers who had opened retail units on the premises of private schools were crying foul, as they were of the view that the government was washing its hands off the responsibility by merely distributing textbooks to students of government-run schools and leaving the rest to the mercy of private distributors. They feared that it might take almost a month for all the textbooks to reach their stores.

"We have so far received 15 to 16 lorry loads of textbooks. Another 10 to 15 lorry loads are expected in a week. Delay in printing of the textbooks for government schools has resulted in the long wait by children of private schools," said I. Ramkumar of Venkateswara Book Depot in One Town area.

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