Mangaluru : The Department of Public Instruction will begin distributing them to schools in Dakshina Kannada from Monday.

The department had ordered 21.27 lakh text books for 3.19 lakh students from Class 1 to Class 10.

Of them, 11.93 lakh textbooks would be given for free to students in government and government aided private schools, and 9.33 lakh textbooks would be purchased by unaided private schools for their students.

Deputy Director of Public Instruction Y. Shivaramaiah said that the new textbooks started arriving at the warehouse of the department since last two months.

“We have so far received 70% of the textbooks for which indent has been placed. By the end of this month we hope to get all,” he said.

Mr. Shivaramaiah said that the textbooks would be first sent to Cluster Resource Persons (CRP) and in turn, schools would take them from CRPs.

There is one CRP for about 15 schools. The unaided schools have been collecting the textbooks from the warehouses from Friday, he said.

Making a change in the way textbooks are procured, the Department of Public Instruction last November asked schools to place the indent online based on the Student’s Tracking System.

The process was delayed for few days because of some technical issues and it was resumed in January following clarification by the Department.

As the new system was unlikely to factor in new admissions, the Department has prepared for the likely shortfall in the textbooks. Following orders by the Department, schools have prepared a bank of text books of students who have been promoted to the next class.

Mr. Shivaramaiah said if there was need of more textbooks from any taluk, the Textbook Society has agreed to supply it.