Academician alleges Std X geography textbook from Balbharati has maps that neither match internationally certified map books nor Indian ones
The distribution of evergreen forests in the country is factually incorrect, says Amrite. To the left is Baltharati textbook, and to the right is the Oxford version
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Looks like the only thing the state board's geography textbooks will be mapping out this year are errors in them. With textbooks for Class X having reached the market, an expert has pointed out erroneous maps printed in the geography textbook.
The state bureau behind this goof-up is Balbharati, which produces textbooks and does research on curriculum. Prof. Vidyadhar Amrite, an academician and former member of the board of studies of the Maharashtra state board noticed these mistakes. He said, "Distribution of evergreen forests in the country is factually incorrect. Forget about certified map books, it is different from books by the NCERT and other boards. Similarly, Balbharati seems to have not put enough thought into the population map. The dot-map to indicate density of population is printed without importance to detailing. Kashmir is shown with less dots than Ladakh, which is very low in population."
"Graphs showing rainfall in different cities have different scales that compromises the basic purpose of a comparative study of rainfall in different parts of the country. These graphs practically show similar rainfall in Delhi and Mumbai," he said. The textbook is wrong with its international facts, too. "Balbharati has shown low rainfall in areas of Brazil in the places where the Oxford map shows high rainfall, for example, in the Amazon rainforest," said Amrite.
N J Pawar, chairman of the board of studies for geography at the state board said, "If anybody has complaints regarding the new textbook, they should bring it to our notice. The committee will take decisions accordingly, if required, after
review."
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