Gurugram: The Haryana government has blacklisted eight publishers with immediate effect, barring them from supplying books to any higher education institution in the state, years after a Rs 4 crore scam was flagged by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG).
The order, issued by the Director General Higher Education (DGHE) S. Narayanan (IFS), and uploaded on the website of the Higher Education Department, Haryana, comes after the CAG flagged serious financial irregularities in the centralised purchase of library books for 149 government colleges across the state in its report for the year ended 31 March 2021.
The blacklisted publishers are: Onkar Books (Patna), Basant Publication (Allahabad), Ekant Publication (Delhi), International Publication Corporation (Delhi), Vidyanidhi (Delhi), Jeevant Prakashan (Noida), Pujya Prakashan (Delhi), and Green Books (Delhi).
Interestingly, none of the eight was found to exist at the addresses mentioned in publicly-available records.
A senior officer of the Higher Education Department, Haryana, confirmed the development when contacted by ThePrint Wednesday.
What the CAG report said
The CAG’s Compliance Audit Report 1 of 2023, tabled in the Haryana Assembly, carries a damning indictment of the entire book procurement exercise under a scheme titled ‘Strengthening of Library Services in Government Colleges’.
In 2019-20, the DGHE was allocated Rs 4 crore under this scheme to purchase books for the libraries of 149 government colleges. The directorate constituted a State Level Purchase Committee (SLPC) of five members, headed by the principal of Government College, Panchkula. The committee selected 252 book titles from eight publishers—the same eight now blacklisted—and purchase orders were issued in September 2019.
The CAG noted that since the purchase was valued above Rs 1 crore, it required mandatory clearance from the High Power Purchase Committee under the Industries and Commerce Department, a requirement the DGHE simply bypassed. No notification or advertisement was issued to invite wider participation from publishers, and the SLPC did not prepare minutes explaining the basis on which publishers and books were selected.
The auditor observed that “the system adopted by the department was not fair and competitive” and the entire process of selection “was arbitrary and lacked objectivity, fairness and transparency”.
The discount scandal
The most significant financial loss, the CAG found, arose from the rate of discount at which books were purchased. The Raja Ram Mohan Roy Library Foundation, Kolkata (India’s nodal agency for developing and promoting public libraries), prescribes a graduated discount structure: Buyers purchasing 201 to 500 copies are entitled to 30 percent discount, while those buying 501 copies or more are entitled to 35 percent. Since the DGHE was making a consolidated purchase of 63,772 copies of selected books on behalf of all 149 colleges combined, it was eligible for discounts ranging between 25 and 35 percent.
Books overpriced, never delivered
Beyond the discount irregularity, the CAG found two further layers of loss. Three publishers—Ekant Publication, Vidyanidhi, and Basant Publications—quoted prices higher than the original printed price of the books. The SLPC, which was responsible for verifying prices during the selection process, failed to catch this. The undue payment on this count amounted to Rs 10.44 lakh.
Additionally, 48 of the 149 colleges reported, between October 2019 and February 2020, that books worth Rs 2.18 lakh were found missing from the consignments they received. No action was taken against the publishers responsible. In total, the additional loss on account of missing books and overcharging came to Rs 12.62 lakh.
The DGHE had also issued a certificate, undated, stating that all 149 colleges had received the books in good condition. The CAG noted that this certificate was issued without actually verifying receipt from all the colleges.
Purchase orders had stipulated that publishers must submit delivery receipts from individual colleges before any payment was released. The DGHE overrode this condition within a fortnight of issuing the orders, directing college principals to simply issue a stamped receipt to the transporter and email the DHE about receipt of books. The full payment of Rs 3.99 crore was released to publishers in October 2019, before the delivery status had been properly ascertained. The CAG also observed that books were dispatched from the DHE office rather than directly from the publishers, as colleges had reported.
During the exit conference held in May 2022, the department said it was initiating reconciliation, recovery from publishers, and fixing responsibility for department officials.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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