When Shampa Chakraborty visited a College Street stall to buy two textbooks for her daughter, not only did the seller make her pay more than the printed prices but also forced her to buy a guidebook she didn’t need.

Three weeks have elapsed since the start of a new academic session in CBSE-affiliated schools, but most textbooks published by the Delhi-based National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) are not available in the market. Borrowing or buying old books is not an option for students of some classes because of changes in their syllabi.

The NCERT’s officiating business manager for the east, D.K. Bhattacharya, denied that books prescribed for classes IX to XII were in short supply. “The shortage is restricted to textbooks that have been rewritten. For instance, the Class V syllabi have been changed. There is a shortage of books meant for Class V since we cannot use last year’s stock. We have to depend entirely on the new stock.”

Another NCERT official blamed booksellers for the shortage. “They are hoarding textbooks and selling them at a premium,” he said.

Most schools in the city handed their students book lists in mid-March. Guardians have since been making regular visits to the College Street stalls, only to be told that the NCERT has not supplied enough books.

“After queuing up for several hours, we return empty-handed. The booksellers say they have no clue when the textbooks will be available,” said Sunita Sharma, mother of a Class IX student of the Kendriya Vidyalaya in Salt Lake.

Chakraborty, whose daughter is in Class X, got what she was looking for only because she was willing to pay more.

Malini Bhagat, the principal of Mahadevi Birla Girls’ Higher Secondary School, said complaints were pouring in but there was little she could do.

“We started our session on April 3 but children have been coming to school without textbooks. ”

The subjects being taught without textbooks include economics, geography, history, civics, Hindi and English. Those in Classes X and XII are nervous at the thought of sitting for the board examinations with less than a year of preparation.

“The authorities must conduct an inquiry,” Mukta Nain, the principal of Birla High School, said.