Odisha government Thursday decided to distribute free text books to students of all the private and non-aided Odia medium schools across the state, an official said.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik approved the proposal to provide free textbooks to students of standard I to standard VIII from the 2024-25 academic year under the government's 5T initiative, a release by the CMO said.

About five lakh students of 3260 private and non-aided Odia medium schools will benefit from the government decision, it said.

The state will have to bear an additional expenditure of Rs 9.43 crore per year for this scheme, the release said.

The state government was providing free text books for the government run schools. It took the decision to do the same for private and non-aided Odia medium schools after noticing that their students too perform well in the annual High School Certificate (HSC) Examinations and demonstrate their skills in various fields, the release said.

Apart from state-run schools, the Odisha government has been distributing text books free of cost to Odia medium schools in West Bengal, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, it added.

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