Petition seeking ban on new books published every year or in short time period

Plea seeking "rules" on new books, HC reserves order

Are you bothered by the new books published every year and chopping down of thousands of trees for them? So was the petitioner, whose plea on fixing school books for 10 years or until there are new major additions was heard by the Indore bench of High Court on Monday.

RTE activist Rajendra K Gupta filed a petition with HC seeking ban on new books published every year or in short time period as it not only makes them expensive, they are an increasing cost to environment and education system.

Raising the concern for cost to environment, Gupta said, “India is a country known to be economic and connected with care for environment as we have generations of people, where father and son have studied from the same books.”

He noted that there are not many additions or any major researches added to books every year. “We don’t change the history syllabus as much every year, but we change the books just because it favours business of publishers and their tie-ups with schools,” Gupta said.

Citing cost to the environment of one A4 sized paper that is used for most publications, he shared that it takes 10 litres of water with a part of tree. “One full-fledged tree can produce 7,500 average quality A4 size pages,” Gupta said.

However, the pages used in most school books are not average quality; they are coated paper or glossy papers. “These papers cost more and can easily last about 35 to 40 years,” Gupta said.

He argued that there are just minor changes at maximum in books that rarely add to the quality of education.

Noting benefits of fixing a book for 10 years or until there are new major additions, Gupta said, “The book sets sold for class 1 to 3 on an average cost between Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000.” He added that sets for higher classes, i.e. class 5 to 12 generally cost between Rs 5,000 and Rs 8,000.

“Underprivileged children with zeal to study cannot afford such sets, even when admitted in private schools,” Gupta said. He added this fixation on books would give even underprivileged a chance to study through the same books.

“This is the least benefit we are considering, with fixation on books for 10 years, we can hopefully reduce the number of trees chopped down for printing and publications, and bring in-force the four Rs for environment conservation,” Gupta said.

The PIL was listed on Monday before the division bench of Justice SC Sharma and Justice Virendra Singh. The order is still pending in the case.