COIMBATORE: Investigations into the mysterious disappearance of 3.5 lakh kilograms of newly printed school textbooks in Coimbatore in 2011-12 have revealed that at least 65,000 kg of the textbooks were sold as scrap to a waste paper merchant in Madurai.
The sale of the Samacheer Kalvi (Uniform School Education) learning materials — printed by the Tamil Nadu Textbooks Corporation — to the scrap dealer, came to light following the arrest of S Saravanakumar, an office assistant at the School Education Department in Coimbatore, on Wednesday.
Saravanakumar has been accused of acting at the behest of some School Education Department officials. Recently Chennai Chief Educational Officer (CEO) T Rajendran, who was the then CEO of Coimbatore, was suspended for allegedly failing to check the scam.
During 2011-12, the Tamil Nadu Textbooks Corporation (TNTC) had printed several lakh textbooks for distribution under the Samacheer Kalvi. Later, acting on a court direction, the School Education Department distributed existing stocks of the textbooks printed during the DMK regime. The new textbooks were kept in storehouses. However, recently, Coimbatore CEO A Gnanagowri, while checking the inventory, found that nearly 3.5 lakh kg of textbooks were missing and filed a complaint.
“On questioning the suspects, we learnt that they had used a novel modus operandi to siphon off the book stocks from a school where they were stored. On weekends and holidays, the accused quietly loaded the books onto trucks claiming that they were being taken to schools in Pollachi and other places. On the way, they diverted the stock to Madurai where it was sold to a wholesale waste paper dealer,” City Crime Branch Inspector S Mariamuthu told Express.
The accused had sold the books for `4 lakh. “The real worth of the books is yet to be ascertained. The CEO has not mentioned the value of the books in the complaint as they were printed over three years ago,” he added. The police are now probing where the remaining textbook stock of 2.85 lakh kg has been diverted.
“Last week, we registered cases for criminal breach of trust by public servants and other charges against then CEO Rajendran and four officials of the School Education Department — Saravanakumar, Arul Jothi, Sethuramalingam (a record clerk and suspected mastermind) and Prince Solomon,” a police officer said. A school headmaster Lourdu Xavier and TNTC official Karthikeyan have also been booked.