Bhubaneswar, April 1: Officials of the school and mass education department seized books worth lakhs during a raid on shops illegally selling textbooks meant for government school, .

“The officials visited a shop in Cuttack and enquired about certain textbooks and found that they were being sold at around three times the original price. A book that cost Rs 66 was being sold at Rs 166,” said a senior official.

When they asked for a receipt, the shopkeeper refused. Following this, officials approached the cops and filed a complaint. At least 15 policemen raided the shop last evening and seized about 20,000 textbooks on various subjects.

Books on maths, literature, history, geography, along with other subjects, which were supplied through the Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan project, were found.

Textbooks for Classes I to VII are supplied free to students of all government schools. Private and unaided schools purchase the books through designated supply centres at subsidised rates.

However, these books often get diverted to the open market and sold at a high price. To check this practice, the department had alerted that unauthorised dealers selling the books would be booked. Moreover, to prevent the large-scale black marketing, the department had supplied the books through registered dealers only.

Books were sold through registered dealers of five education zones-Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Balasore, Sambalpur and Berhampur. Details of these dealers were made available on the department's website and brought forward in the form of advertisements from time to time.

The supply of textbook for Classes IX and X in government schools across the state began on March 23. The police have detained the bookstore owner and have started interrogations to find out more about the racket.

“More such raids will be conducted soon,” said the official. Last year, students faced a lot of problem after books could not reach them in time. Black marketing of books was one of the main reasons for such problems.