Despite pressure from the Janak Shiksha Samagri Kendra (JSSK) and private publishers to hike the rate, the price of textbooks for public schools will remain the same as last year, according to the Department of Education (DoE).

Starting in 2012, the Education Ministry has been fixing the book prices after some printers were found to be putting price tags arbitrarily. For this academic year, companies can charge Rs134 for a set of grade one books while it will cost around Rs500 for grade 10 including two books of optional subjects.

The government provides free textbooks for students from state-run schools across the country. For the purpose, Rs1.7 billion has been earmarked for the current fiscal year. The JSSK prints the books for grades 6 to 10 while around a dozen private firms are engaged in preparing the books for grades one to five.

For textbooks meant for private schools, the government two years ago permitted a publisher to charge a maximum of Rs0.83 per black and white page, Re1 for two-colour printing and Rs1.15 for multi-colour books. The rate increases by 10 percent every year. The DoE provides funds to schools to buy books based on the number of students enrolled in them. There are 5.9 million students in 29,000 public schools across the country. Three weeks before the commencement of the new academic session, the JSSK is yet to print over 4 million books.