Library books purchase: Lokayukta takes suo moto cognisance of Indian Express report, seeks status report from Haryana govt

The Lokayukta has decided to register the news — which appeared in various newspapers including The Indian Express — as a complaint. The Lokayukta has ordered that the state chief secretary or additional chief secretary (higher education) will submit the status reports or comments on the news items within two months. The Lokayukta has also directed that the director general of the higher education department or some senior officer of the department appear before the anti-corruption watchdog at the next hearing of the case on July 19.

The higher education department paid nearly Rs 4 crore to publishers in October 2019. According to the CAG report tabled in the state assembly in March this year, the department did not follow the rules regarding the purchase of books as the power to finalise the purchases valuing over Rs 1 crore was vested with the High Power Purchase Committee of the state government. According to the CAG, the then higher education director in April 2019 constituted a state-level purchase committee (SLPC) of five members headed by a principal of Panchkula’s government college for centralised purchase of books for all the libraries located in 149 government colleges in the state.

The CAG auditors have also observed that since this was a centralised purchase for 149 colleges and consolidated payment on behalf of all the colleges was made by the higher education director to the publishers, the department was eligible for availing of a discount ranging between 25 to 35 per cent on bulk order for 63,77,236 copies of selected books.

“Availing of lesser discounts at the rate of 10% resulted in excess expenditure of Rs 79.96 lakh,” the CAG report mentioned.