More than 4.7 Lakh Pirated NCERT Books Stopped Since 2024: Education Ministry to Rajya Sabha

Enumerating steps taken to check piracy, the MoS stated that in the past one year, the NCERT has raided a record 29 establishments of pirated textbook manufacturers and sellers, producers of illicit NCERT watermarked paper, and seized stock and machinery worth over Rs 20 crore.

More than 4.7 lakh pirated copies of NCERT books have been confiscated from all over the country since 2024, the Rajya Sabha was told on Wednesday. The information was provided by Union Minister of State for Education Jayant Chaudhary in a written reply in the Upper House.

"Reports of piracy of NCERT books have been received from various regions of the country. In the years 2024 and 2025, about 4.71 lakh pirated NCERT books have been recovered in various drives across various states. Piracy is motivated by commercial interests of vested elements," Chaudhary added.

"The prime aim of NCERT is to make available good quality textbooks at a very low cost to the last student in the country, on a no-profit and no-loss basis," he further added.

"NCERT has also made some positive initiatives to target directly at the root of piracy business, such as 20 per cent price cut of NCERT textbooks, earliest printing of NCERT textbooks, better quality of paper and print (with modern machines), promotion of online sale of textbooks via e-commerce sites.".

"NCERT has also tested a pilot run of technology-based anti-piracy solution on one million copies of grade 6 text book. This technology-based solution has been created and patented by Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur," he added.