Power outages hit printing presses, will students get textbooks on time?

Four hours of electricity a day and generators for the rest of the time. This is how the printing of free textbooks for the 2027 academic year is now being carried out.

Although more than 300 million books are targeted to be printed by November 30 so they can be delivered to students on the first day of the year, the work is being severely disrupted by power outages.

The task is a government priority. Large printing presses are being forced to run generators to keep operations going. This is costing an average of Tk 90,000 to Tk 100,000 a day in fuel. Repeatedly shutting down and restarting machines as electricity alternates with generator power is also damaging paper and causing printed forms to be discarded.

Against this backdrop, the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) has written to power distribution companies requesting uninterrupted electricity or scheduled load shedding at specific times. However, after requests through letters and phone calls failed to improve the situation, the NCTB has now sought the intervention of the Power Division through the Ministry of Education.

All of this has raised concerns about whether new books can be handed to students on the first day of the year.

It is learned that printing of more than 300 million free textbooks for preprimary through ninth grade for the 2027 academic year began on August 16. The target is to complete printing by November 30 and send the books to the upazila level. The prime minister has personally inquired several times about the progress of this government priority program.

However, the printing work is being disrupted by load shedding. Presses outside Dhaka are particularly affected. They are receiving electricity for an average of only four hours a day. For the rest of the time workers at the printing presses have to remain idle.

The NCTB said 133 printing companies have received contracts to print books this year. Most of them are located outside Dhaka. Apart from Matuail in Jatrabari, presses are located in Manikganj, Narayanganj, Gazipur, Noakhali, Chattogram, Narsingdi, Lakshmipur and Cumilla.

As the presses are located outside the capital, they have to depend on the electricity supply in those areas. NCTB Secretary Shah Muhammad Firoz Al Ferdous therefore wrote to the distribution companies requesting uninterrupted electricity supply to the presses.

The letter also requested that if uninterrupted supply is not possible in any area, load shedding should at least be scheduled for specific times. This would allow the presses to operate their machines continuously outside those hours.