Books on Deendayal speeches bought by Haryana govt, cost Rs 2 cr

THE HARYANA government has bought 5,000 sets of books of RSS ideologue Deendayal Upadhyay’s speeches and writings at a cost of Rs 2 crore for libraries of Haryana’s schools and colleges as well as for all its government departments. Each set has 15 books.

The process for purchase was initiated after the Delhi-based publisher of the books Prabhat Prakashan wrote to the government asking it to buy 5,000 copies of “Deendayal Upadhyay Sampoorna Vangmaya”, a compilation of his speeches and writings.

The letter said the books were launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the presence of BJP president Amit Shah and RSS Sarkaryvaha Bhaiyyaji Joshi.

Further, the letter said though each set of 15 books costs Rs 6,000, the publishing house would give a discount of Rs 2,000 per set.

On January 9, a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister R K Khullar to discuss the purchase.

The meeting was attended by the then Director Higher Education Mohd Shayin, Director Information, Public Relations and Languages Sameer Pal Srow, Director Urban Local Bodies Shekhar Vidyarthi and officers from the departments of secondary education, elementary education and technical education. According to the minutes of the meeting, the purchase was initiated on the directions of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar.

The minutes read, “As per the PUC [paper under consideration] on which the directions of the Hon’ble Chief Minister have been conveyed that “CM had earlier ordered its expeditious examination. He has now ordered that DIPR may coordinate purchase of one set each for all libraries of different departments of State Government so as to avail massive discount offered by the publisher”.

The minutes of the meeting record that “therefore, it was decided to purchase 5,000 sets of books for the libraries and educational institutions of the State.”

Principal Secretary to CM Rajesh Khullar and Additional PS to CM Rakesh Gupta did not respond to messages.

A Haryana government officer not wishing to be named said a meeting was held and it was decided to purchase the books for the benefit of the students.

It was decided that 300 books will be purchased by Department of Technical Education at a cost of Rs 12 lakh and 61 books by Department of Information, Public Relations and Languages at a cost of Rs 2.44 lakh.

Samvad Society, which is part of the government’s publicity wing, was directed to immediately release advance payment to the publisher on behalf of the concerned departments. The departments are to reimburse the society within a month.