Telangana recalls Telugu textbook, dismisses two officials for missteps

Hyderabad, June 14 Taking serious note of the error in the textbooks printed with a foreword mentioning K. Chandrasekhar Rao as the chief minister, the Telangana Congress government on Friday lashed out at the responsible officials and recalled 24 lakh of manuals.

The government has ordered the transfer of S. Srinivasa Chary, director of Government Text Book Press, and M. Radha Reddy, director of State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT).

While Chary was asked to take charge of the post of additional director of model schools, Radha Reddy was asked to take charge of the deputy director of the state project, Samagra Shiksha.

G. Ramesh, Additional Director, School Education, has been appointed as Director, SCERT. Telangana Residential Educational Institutions Society (TREIS) secretary Ramana Kumar has been given the responsibility of director of Text Book Press.

The School Education Department on Friday decided to recall Telugu textbooks for classes 1 to 10. After noticing the misstep, officials stopped the distribution of the textbooks. The ministry has decided to delete the foreword. Since the national anthem is printed on the other side of the page containing the foreword, the ministry decided to paste the national anthem on the inside of the cover page, thus covering the foreword.

Text Book Press had printed 24 lakh textbooks for the academic year 2024-25 with the foreword thanking ‘Chief Minister’ Chandrasekhar Rao and ‘Education Minister’ P. Sabitha Indra Reddy. The error came to light when the distribution of books began on June 12, the first day of the new academic year, and left the Congress government in a quandary.

The foreword, copied and printed from the previous edition, thanked ‘Chief Minister’ Chandrashekhar Rao, education ministers and officials of previous BRS governments for their guidance and advice. Sabitha Indra Reddy, Kadiyam Srihari and Jagadish Reddy, all of whom were education ministers, were mentioned in the thank-you note. Sabitha Indra Reddy served as the education minister between 2019 and 2023, while Kadiyam Srihari and Jagadish Reddy had previously held these positions. It also mentions the names of former education secretary Ranjeev R. Acharya, former directors of school education M Jagadeshwar and T. Chiranjeevulu, and government advisor KV Ramanachary.

The Congress party came to power in December 2023, ending the nearly 10-year rule of the Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS).

BRS leader and former education minister Sabitha Indra Reddy slammed the Congress government’s decision to recall textbooks, saying it would lead to wastage of public money. “What’s wrong if textbooks have KCR’s name on them,” she asked.

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