‘No financial burden on students’: Pradhan says NCERT will publish 15 crore affordable books

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Tuesday that the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) will publish 15 crore quality and affordable books in the next academic year. He said that the prices would also be impacted – prices of some books would reduce and prices of some books would not increase. 

“There will be no financial burden on students in the next academic year. Rather, in some classes the price would be reduced,” said Pradhan during a press conference. 

The minister said that this increase in supply of NCERT books to 15 crore, from the current 5 crore annually, has been decided on keeping in mind the demand-supply discrepancy in NCERT books.

He said that the NCERT books distribution chain would remain in place. “Apart from that two platforms that sell NCERT books – Flipkart and Amazon – have signed an MoU with NCERT to sell these books at MRP,” said Pradhan, adding that their network is present in nearly all the pincodes of the country. 

The minister said that these NCERT books would now be available across 23,000 pincodes at MRPs.  

Moreover, Pradhan said that the National Testing Agency (NTA) will cease conducting recruitment exams from 2025 and will focus solely on entrance exams for higher education. This decision is part of a series of examination reforms following recommendations from a high-level panel. 

"NTA will be limited to conducting only entrance exams for higher education and will not conduct any recruitment exams from next year," Pradhan said, further confirming that the Common University Entrance Test (CUET)-UG will continue to be held annually.