'Bharat' and 'India' will be used interchangeably in NCERT textbooks as is the case in the country's Constitution, National Council of Educational Research and Training Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani has said.

The comments assume significance in the wake of a high-level panel working on the social science curriculum recommending that "India" should be replaced with "Bharat" in school textbooks for all classes.

In an interaction with PTI editors at the agency's headquarters here, the NCERT chief said both the words will be used in the books and the council has no aversion to either "Bharat" or "India".

"It is interchangeable....our position is what our Constitution says and we uphold that. We can use Bharat, we can use India, what is the problem? We are not in that debate. Wherever it suits we will use India, wherever it suits we will use Bharat. We have no aversion to either India or Bharat," he said.

"You can see both being used in our textbooks already and that will continue in new textbooks. This is a useless debate," Saklani said.