Books Per School in India — Library Statistics by State (2024-25)
GetSchoolsInfo14 min read3 May 2026Updated 19 July 2026
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TL;DR
India's school system holds 121.7 crore books across 14.71 lakh schools — an average of 827 books per school. But that average is almost meaningless because the spread is enormous: Chandigarh tops the list at (12× the national average), while Meghalaya finishes last at (1/7th of the national average). The gap between top and bottom is . Library availability nationally is 89.5% — meaning roughly 10% of schools don't have a library at all. NEP 2020 calls for libraries in every school by 2030. We break down the full 36-state leaderboard, explain why the small-UT outliers dominate the top, and look at what the bottom five would need to catch up.
The full leaderboard — books per school by state/UT
Rank
State / UT
Books Per School
Total Books (cr)
1
Chandigarh
9,990
0.21
2
Delhi
5,932
3.30
3
Andaman & Nicobar Islands
4,277
0.17
4
Puducherry
3,348
0.26
5
Lakshadweep
3,129
0.01
6
Goa
2,992
0.44
7
Kerala
2,836
4.47
8
Haryana
2,242
5.27
9
Dadra & Nagar Haveli + Daman & Diu
1,983
0.09
10
Punjab
1,703
4.65
11
Karnataka
1,634
12.24
12
Odisha
1,314
8.09
13
Gujarat
1,231
6.57
14
Maharashtra
1,193
12.92
15
Andhra Pradesh
1,099
6.74
16
Himachal Pradesh
1,044
1.81
17
Tamil Nadu
948
5.50
All India
—
827
121.72
18
Uttarakhand
831
1.87
19
Rajasthan
720
7.66
20
Assam
617
3.41
21
Jharkhand
606
2.69
22
Telangana
588
2.54
23
Chhattisgarh
571
3.25
24
Sikkim
549
0.07
25
Ladakh
529
0.05
26
Nagaland
510
0.14
27
West Bengal
488
4.57
28
Uttar Pradesh
473
12.43
29
Madhya Pradesh
451
5.52
30
Jammu & Kashmir
436
1.06
31
Arunachal Pradesh
413
0.13
32
Tripura
388
0.19
33
Manipur
355
0.17
34
Bihar
318
3.00
35
Mizoram
170
0.07
36
Meghalaya
120
0.18
Source: UDISE+ Report 2024-25, Infrastructure Facilities Annexure (books_per_school sub-section). All numbers from official UDISE+ tables; per-school average = (state's total books in school libraries) ÷ (state's total schools).
Why the small UTs dominate the top of the list
The top 5 — Chandigarh, Delhi, Andaman & Nicobar, Puducherry, Lakshadweep — are all small geographies with concentrated funding bases. Three structural reasons:
Smaller school count, larger per-school endowment. Chandigarh has just 207 schools but receives a disproportionate share of central funding for libraries (it's a Union Territory directly under the Ministry of Education, and many of its schools are KVs / DAV / centrally-administered). With more money chasing fewer schools, books-per-school explodes.
Urban-only or near-urban-only school populations. Chandigarh has zero rural schools. Delhi is 97% urban. Urban schools tend to have older, more established libraries with longer accession histories.
Centralised library procurement. UTs run library acquisitions through centralised UT-level procurement, often in bulk. State governments — particularly large ones like UP, MP, Bihar — push library budgets to the school level, where small per-school grants don't accumulate into substantial collections.
The Chandigarh figure (9,990 books per school) is real but not generalizable. What matters more is the per-state position relative to comparable peers. Within the major-state cohort, Kerala (2,836) and Haryana (2,242) sit at the top of the realistic-state leaderboard, while UP (473), MP (451), Bihar (318) sit at the bottom.
The bottom 5: a closer look
State
Books Per School
School Count
Library Availability
Meghalaya
120
14,587
low (~50%)
Mizoram
170
3,974
mid
Bihar
318
94,339
mid-high
Manipur
355
4,666
mid
Tripura
388
4,943
mid
Meghalaya is the most striking case. With 14,587 schools — ranking 22nd in the country by school count — its 120-books-per-school average means the entire state's school library system holds about 17.5 lakh books. Bangalore Public Library alone holds more. Meghalaya's library availability percentage is also among the lowest in the country at roughly 50% (i.e., half of schools don't have a library at all — the 120-per-school figure is the average across schools that do).
Mizoram at 170 books per school faces a similar structural problem — small school footprint (3,974 schools), low population, and limited state OPEX for library acquisitions.
Bihar is the most consequential entry on the bottom-5 list because of scale. Bihar has 94,339 schools serving 2.11 crore students — third-largest enrolment in India — yet only 318 books per school. Bihar's total school-library holding (3 crore books) is actually larger than Meghalaya's, but spread thin over the largest enrolment in any low-library state.
Library availability — the prior question
Before "how many books per school" matters, the prior question is: does the school have a library at all?
Library / book bank / reading corner availability: 89.5% nationally
Library only (full library, not corner): ~75% nationally
So roughly 10% of Indian schools have no library, book bank or reading corner — about 1.5 lakh schools. These are concentrated in small, single-teacher, primary-only government schools in low-density tribal districts. NEP 2020 commits to universal library coverage by 2030 — to hit that, India needs to add libraries (or at minimum reading corners) in 1.5 lakh schools over 6 years. That's 25,000 new library installations per year. Doable, but not by accident.
NEP 2020 on libraries — what's promised vs delivered
The National Education Policy 2020 makes three explicit library commitments:
Universal library availability by 2030 (every school must have a library).
Strengthening of school libraries with regular acquisitions, including in regional languages.
Public-school-library partnerships to make school libraries serve community needs after school hours.
Progress through 2024-25:
Library availability has risen from ~78% in 2019 to 89.5% in 2024-25 — a real gain of ~11 percentage points in 5 years
Per-school book counts have risen modestly — the national average is up roughly 8% in real terms since 2019
The community-library partnership is largely unimplemented at scale; pilot programmes exist in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka
The trend is right but the pace is slower than NEP demanded. Hitting 100% library availability by 2030 will require sustained budget allocation under the Samagra Shiksha annual workplan, which currently allocates ₹5,000-25,000 per primary school for library development per year — a meaningful sum if used well, often spent on textbook supplements rather than reading collections.
What "books per school" actually measures (and doesn't)
Important caveat: UDISE+ counts books reported by school heads as part of the school library. This includes:
Subject reference books (NCERT supplements, Lakhmir Singh, Hindi readers)
Storybooks and graded readers
Encyclopaedias, atlases, dictionaries
Magazines and periodicals (counted as one book each per issue, in some states)
It typically does not include:
Personal teacher copies
Textbooks issued to students under the free-textbook scheme
So 827 books per school is the count of library books. A typical Indian school child gets free textbooks under the Mid-Day Meal + Free Uniform + Free Textbook bundle, but those textbooks are separate from the library count.
What schools can do — practical reading-corner advice
For schools sitting below the national average and looking to move up:
Apply for the Samagra Shiksha library grant — every government school is eligible for ₹13,000-35,000/year for library development under the SSA Annual Workplan. The grant is often unspent because principals don't apply. Submit through the district BEO office.
Set up a reading corner first — Even a 20-book corner counts for UDISE+ "library availability" purposes and creates a low-cost foothold for further expansion.
Partner with NGO library networks — Pratham (Read India programme), Room to Read, Akshara Foundation and Ek Tara all donate book bundles to government schools that submit a brief proposal. A typical donation is 100-300 books.
Run a community book drive — A single Saturday community book-collection drive in an urban locality typically yields 200-800 used books, of which 60-70% are usable for school libraries.
Catalog what you have — UDISE+ self-reporting depends on the school's internal count. Many schools under-report because they haven't catalogued in years. A single-day inventory often surfaces 100-300 forgotten books in the principal's office or staff room.
Q1. What is the average number of books in an Indian school library?
The average Indian school library holds 827 books (UDISE+ 2024-25), computed as total books in school libraries (121.72 crore) ÷ total schools (14.71 lakh). The average is heavily skewed — Chandigarh schools average 9,990 books while Meghalaya schools average just 120 — so the median (likely around 400-500 books) is a more representative measure for a typical school. NEP 2020 has not specified a minimum book-count target, but most international benchmarks suggest 5-10 books per student as a healthy floor. India averages roughly 4.9 books per student across the school system.
Q2. Which Indian state has the most books per school?
Chandigarh leads with 9,990 books per school (UDISE+ 2024-25) — about 12× the national average. The top 5 are: Chandigarh (9,990), Delhi (5,932), Andaman & Nicobar Islands (4,277), Puducherry (3,348), Lakshadweep (3,129). All five are Union Territories. Among full states, Goa (2,992), Kerala (2,836), Haryana (2,242), Punjab (1,703) and Karnataka (1,634) are the top 5. The pattern: small geographies, urban concentration, and centralised procurement push the per-school count up. Large states — UP, MP, Bihar — have to spread library budgets thinner.
Q3. Which Indian state has the fewest books per school?
Meghalaya, with just 120 books per school (UDISE+ 2024-25). Mizoram (170), Bihar (318), Manipur (355) and Tripura (388) round out the bottom 5. Meghalaya's count is striking: with 14,587 schools, the entire state's school-library holding is about 17.5 lakh books — less than a single major public library in Delhi or Bangalore. Library availability in Meghalaya is also among the lowest in the country (~50%, vs national 89.5%) — meaning half of Meghalaya's schools don't have a library at all, and the 120 average is computed across the half that do.
Q4. What percentage of Indian schools have a library?
89.5% of Indian schools have a library, book bank, or reading corner (UDISE+ 2024-25). That's up from roughly 78% in 2019 — a meaningful gain of 11 percentage points in 5 years driven by the Samagra Shiksha library-development grants. The remaining 10.5% — about 1.5 lakh schools — are mostly single-teacher primary schools in low-density tribal blocks. NEP 2020 commits to 100% library coverage by 2030, which means India needs to install libraries (or at minimum reading corners) in ~25,000 schools per year. The current pace is roughly 22,000-30,000/year, so the target is achievable if the pace holds.
Q5. Why does Chandigarh have so many books per school?
Three reasons stack up. (1) Chandigarh has only 207 schools — the second-smallest school count in India after Lakshadweep. With central funding spread over fewer schools, the per-school endowment is much higher. (2) Chandigarh has zero rural schools, so the per-school average is driven entirely by urban schools, which tend to have older, more established libraries with deeper accession histories. (3) Chandigarh is a Union Territory directly administered by the Ministry of Education, with a higher central-grant allocation per school than typical state governments. The 9,990-per-school figure is real but not generalizable to states.
Q6. How does India compare globally on school library size?
Hard to compare cleanly because most countries don't measure school-library book counts at the national level. Rough benchmarks: the United States averages around 12,000-15,000 books per K-12 school library (American Library Association 2022); the UK averages around 8,000-10,000 per school library; Australia around 9,000-11,000. India's national average of 827 sits well below these numbers, but India's lower number partly reflects its much larger and more rural school footprint — comparing per-student is fairer. India averages 4.9 books per student; the US averages roughly 25-30 books per student. The gap is real and meaningful, but closing it would require sustained library-OPEX commitment, not just one-off grants.
Q7. What are reading corners and do they count as libraries?
A reading corner is a small designated reading space within a classroom — typically a shelf or low cupboard with 20-100 books, often arranged by reading level. Under UDISE+, a school is recorded as "having a library / book bank / reading corner" if any of the three exist. This is a deliberate broad definition that lets primary schools without a separate library room still count if they maintain class-level reading corners. Reading corners are pedagogically effective at the primary stage — they put books in arm's reach during the school day — and are NEP 2020's recommended starter approach for resource-constrained schools.
Q8. How are school library books funded in India?
Three primary funding streams. (1) Samagra Shiksha annual library development grant — ₹13,000-35,000 per government school per year, depending on level and enrolment. This is the largest steady source. (2) Local district / state level acquisitions — varies by state; Kerala and Tamil Nadu have particularly active state-level acquisition programmes. (3) CSR + NGO partnerships — Pratham, Room to Read, Akshara Foundation, Ek Tara and corporate CSR programmes donate substantial book bundles, particularly to rural government schools. Private school libraries are funded entirely from school fees; the library budget is typically 1-3% of annual fee collection in a mid-tier private school.
Q9. What does NEP 2020 say about school libraries?
NEP 2020 commits to three library-related goals: (1) every school in India must have a library by 2030 (universal availability); (2) school libraries must be strengthened with regular acquisitions including books in regional languages; (3) school libraries should serve as community libraries after school hours where feasible. NEP also recommends specific library-pedagogy practices — silent reading time, guided reading sessions, reading clubs and book talks. NEP 2020's library targets are aspirational and not backed by binding state-level allocations, but they have driven a meaningful increase in library-availability data since 2020 (from 78% to 89.5%) and continuing investment under Samagra Shiksha.
Q10. Where can I see how many books my child's school has?
Every school's UDISE+ record includes a library-and-book-count field, accessible through the public UDISE+ dashboard at udiseplus.gov.in. For a more navigable view, search your school by name on getschoolsinfo.com — every school in our index displays its UDISE+ infrastructure facilities including library availability and (where reported) book count. If your school's count looks low or the library field is blank, raise it with the school SMC (School Management Committee). UDISE+ data is self-reported by the school, and many schools under-report because they haven't catalogued in years.
Sources: UDISE+ Report 2024-25 (Department of School Education & Literacy, Ministry of Education, Government of India); National Education Policy 2020; Samagra Shiksha Annual Work Plan & Budget Manual. Numbers verified against UDISE+ Annexures, Infrastructure Facilities tables (books_per_school + library_availability sub-sections).