For allegedly selling a large number of textbooks to a scrap vendor, the headmaster of a government school in Sundargarh district, Odisha, was placed under suspension, on Wednesday, April 20.

After the issue of illegally selling large quantities of textbooks to a scrap vendor, which were originally meant for students, came to light, Koida Block Education Officer (BEO) Md S Rehman suspended the accused. Chhanda Charan Singh, the headmaster of Sargigarh Upper Primary School in Koida block, was identified as the accused. The books were mainly aimed for free distribution to the students who were studying in different classes. 

The BEO conducted an inquiry after receiving a complaint regarding the issue and found the allegation against the accused to be true. The incident was brought to light on April 18, when an autorickshaw arrived at the school but broke down and was left stranded on the road when it was about to leave.

Some locals came forward to help the three-wheeler and were shocked after finding around 3,000 textbooks that were loaded in the vehicle. On enquiry, they came to know that the headmaster illegally sold the books to a scrap dealer. 

Based on the investigation conducted by the BEO of Koida, District Education Officer AK Pradhan stated that a report was submitted to the Government of Odisha on Thursday, April 21.

The books have been recovered from the scrap vendor.

Further, Pradhan also mentioned that in several cases, it was not possible for schools to distribute all the books received from the government to the students. The undistributed books are government property and it remains in the custody of respective school authorities. Selling undistributed books without informing the concerned school authorities is illegal, he said.