Scarcity of staff affects release of text books

BANGALORE: It has been over a month since classes have begun for students of Bangalore University, yet they are finding it difficult to find text books for languages in Prasaranga, the publication and printing press wing of the university. The university cites scarcity of staff as the reason.In the last few weeks, students especially from far-flung colleges, are making their annual trip to the retail outlet of Prasaranga situated near Mysore Bank Circle. "Often we return empty-handed. It has been a month since colleges have begun but text books are still not available," said Kamala G, a II BCA student. Students say that they prefer the university books as they are affordable-the maximum price of a book being Rs 150 - and the books run on prescribed content.A visit to the outlet on Thursday showed that books for I year BCA and III year BA are not available while the shopkeepers claimed that other books were available."There has been a slight delay in supplying books to the outlet not because the books were not printed on time. But we were facing a shortage of staff. In fact, this time we had given the books for binding to an outside agent to complete the work on time. In comparison to the delay in the previous years, there has been only a slight delay," said Dr Ganesh B, Director, Prasaranga and Printing Press.On questioning about the sale of piles of books lying in the outlet, the storekeepers said that the delay led to the books from not being sold but the director said that the students would buy the books soon. "In fact for certain courses 20,000 books were printed but the stock has run out. We have to reprint the books and that will take some time," he said.