Bhubaneswar: The total number of errors detected in Odisha’s school textbooks, from Classes I to Class VIII, stands at 1,741, school and mass education minister Nityananda Gond informed the assembly on Friday.The figure is higher than the 1,678 errors listed in a corrigendum issued by State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), which had increased to 1,731 when an administrative inquiry committee probed into the matter. A govt officer said the count increased further after new errors were detected during a detailed scrutiny carried out for preparing the revised textbooks.In written replies to questions from BJD MLAs Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo and Goutam Buddha Das and Congress MLA Sofia Firdous, the minister said the textbooks contained five factual and conceptual errors and 1,075 grammatical, typographical and spelling mistakes, among other lapses.The minister said the textbooks were prepared, reviewed and proofread through workshop-mode exercises before being placed before the core committee for final approval. The material was subsequently reviewed by subject experts for a day.He said errors related to the photograph of Odisha Legislative Assembly, the location of Niyamgiri Hills and the identification of Konark Sun Temple were later detected. A corrigendum containing the corrected information has been circulated to schools for reference by teachers and students.The minister said the govt has taken corrective and preventive measures to ensure greater accuracy in future textbooks, particularly in the presentation of Odisha’s history, geography, language and cultural heritage. “All identified errors have been rectified in the revised editions and new safeguards, including fact-checking by subject experts and language scrutiny by linguistic experts, have been introduced during the textbook preparation process. Error-free books are now being printed and distributed to students,” he added.The minister informed the house that action has been taken against more than 10 officials after 1,741 errors were detected in textbooks introduced for Classes I to VIII. Besides the suspension of the former director and three assistant directors, disciplinary proceedings are underway against six assistant directors.To address the lapses, corrigenda and supplementary booklets have been provided to teachers. In reply to another question by BJD MLA Prashant Behera, the minister said the distribution of the revised textbooks is currently underway.