Chennai: Three years after starting the online sale of books, the Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation’s has sold more than Rs 106 crore worth of books through online to schools, students and individuals in this year.
Meanwhile, it is able to sell Rs 2.5 crore worth of books through its counters at DPI campus and Anna Centenary Library.
The textbook corporation started its book sale as early as April with Tamil books for CBSE students. “For CBSE schools, 8.32 lakh Tamil books for classes 1 to 9 were sold. It has fetched '6.82 crore,” officials said.
The sale of books for classes 10, 11, 12 has got around Rs 40 crore.
The schools are getting a 5 per cent discount for their bulk purchase of the books.
N.Vijayan, founder and principal of Zion Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Tambaram, said the online sale has removed the cumbersome process of procuring the textbooks manually. “It has helped the school to save a lot of manpower and time,” he said.
The syllabus for classes 1,6, 9 and 11 was revised this year. The sale of books for classes 1,6 and 9 went on smoothly. However, the sale of minority language books for class 11 is yet to be commenced as the corporation received the CDs very late.
Some principals also pointed out the scarcity of plus-1 books and urged the board to print excess books.
“The demand for revised plus-1 books witnessed an increase of 40 per cent compared to last year. It was unexpected. Apart from students, the candidates preparing for competitive exams also have bought the textbooks have increased the demand,” sources said.
