Kathmandu, Apr. 6: Janak Education Materials Centre (JEMC) informed that printing of schools’ textbooks was going on and that it was not halted because of ballot paper printing task. Though it started printing ballot papers since March 31, printing of the textbooks hasn’t affected because of this, said the JEMC.

Chitra Acharya, information officer of the JEMC, said as earlier, the JEMC has been printing about 100,000 textbooks daily by mobilising all human resources. It has set a target to print 19,000,000 textbooks for this academic session.
According to Acharya, the JEMC has printed a total of 15,500,000 textbooks from grade four to grade ten till now. But the textbooks for grades one to three has been printed by private publishers as the centre doesn’t has a printing machine required to print them. The JEMC is considering setting up a press to print books for the coming academic session, he said.

Now, the JEMC is required to print 3,500,000 textbooks for coming academic session. As per the estimation of the centre, it will complete that target before the start of new academic session.
In addition to printing textbooks, the centre has been delivering printed textbooks in its regional offices with a plan to make them available in time, Acharya informed.

Meanwhile, the JEMC informed that it has been printing ballot papers from its four press set up to print such papers, as well as from the security press.
After the Election Commission (EC) asked it to print 21,700,000 ballot papers for the local poll, the JEMC has been printing accordingly. Information officer Acharya informed that it will complete the task of printing ballot papers within 25 days.

A total of 160 human resources, including 140 army personals, are involved in printing ballot papers. Now, the JEMC has planned to print ballot papers for 24 hours to complete the task as soon as possible.

Regarding the rumour of paper shortage in the country, the JEMC stated that as it had already selected companies for paper supply, it has been facing no trouble in printing paper. Acharya informed that the company had been delivering papers on a daily basis as per requirement.