The latest scam over the purchase of books for the library in the newly opened Coimbatore Periyar Arivulagam (knowledge world) is intriguing since it has only triggered a blame game between two political parties or rather two successive regimes with each pointing fingers at the other giving rise to a needless whodunit conundrum. In a modern government behemoth like Periyar Arivulagam, which was built at a cost of Rs 300 crore, every transaction would be on record and every detail would be available on the press of a button in the computer keyboard. But, more than a day after the scam broke out, no one is telling the anxious public as to who were the culprits who had siphoned off public money through fraudulent means.
Hitherto, the only known means of defrauding a public library would be to inflate the prices of books exponentially or renege on delivering the books after collecting the payment for them. Now we hear about a novel way of looting a library – by supplying fake books, which in other words means that a book is just another commodity that can be duplicated. Of course the overpricing was also there – books that would cost about Rs 350 or 500 for a copy were purchased for around Rs 1500. More than two days after the scandal came to light – that too because someone part of the book procurement process itself blew the whistle – if the beneficiary of the loot is not identified, it is an indicator of the way in which a library is seen.
But even after the whole fraud came to light with absolute clarity, thanks to Tamil writer Perumal Murugan who is part of the committee recommending the selection of books, coming out openly through an article in a publication – he had seemingly no scope for red-flagging it internally and preventing the scam in advance – the whodunit mystery continues. While the main debate in the public sphere revolves only around pinpointing the regime that had erred – the previous DMK government that launched the project or the present TVK rule that inaugurated it – the possible real culprits are likely to escape scrutiny. When elections come periodically, leading to change in regimes and policies, the silent constant is the ‘bureaucracy’ or the so-called steel frame that holds up the administration of the country.
Whichever political party ascends to the seat of power, if normal life continues for ordinary citizens without any upheaval or disruption, it is because of the bureaucracy, which in other terms means the officials in the government who take most of the decisions relating to the administration process. Most of the time, it is the officials who have a key say on the books and authors to be selected for a new library project for it is they who coordinate with the various committees formed by the government to undertake different tasks. It is they who interact with publishing houses and also authors to place orders for the books even if the titles are recommended by the expert committee comprising writers and people connected with literature.
Above all it’s the officials in the department concerned who would have to verify the books and take a call on making payments. The Minister, or the party that runs the government, never comes into the picture to oversee or supervise such a nitty-gritty of procedures. It is purely a bureaucratic operation since the Minister or the government that might have placed the orders would have retreated from the scene when the book bundles arrived. Even while selecting books, the communication relating to the operations between members are handled by the officials of the department and not the Minister himself – whether he belongs to the DMK or the TVK or any other party.
To put it otherwise, the officials know everything about the selection of publishing houses and authors. It is they who should check on the quality of books – to find out if they were AI generated or properly written by an author and brought out by a recognized publishing house- and not the politicians. So the present allegations made by Perumal Murugan point to lapses in the bureaucracy in the department concerned. If the officials had pointed out through official modes of communication that several books were being purchased from a single publishing house that has no standing in the industry, such a scam could have been averted. Apart from contacting publishing houses to place orders, it is also the duty of the officials to screen the books that are delivered and raise questions on them with the committees concerned with selection of the books.
The officials also have the duty of briefing the committees on the merits and demerits of the books and also the reputation of authors. Though the officials may not be able to overrun the decisions of committees and political bosses, when blatant violation like AI generated texts are bound and published as books and when books written by reportedly unknown authors with names like Trisha Vijay are coming to the library they have to powers to escalate the issue by raising doubts with their superior officers. But nothing like that seems to have happened in the present scam. The officials seemed to have not bothered to question the apparent fraud. Even now to solve the whodunit puzzle, all that has to be done is to ask the officials.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: deccanchronicle.com
