By News18
In a bizarre incident, a school in Madhya Pradesh鈥檚 Shahdol employed an unimaginable 168 labourers and 65 masons to apply just four litres of paint on a single wall of a government school in district鈥檚 Sakandi village. For this task, an amount of Rs 1.07 lakh was also allegedly withdrawn.
The bill, prepared by Sudhakar Construction, the firm responsible for the project, has gone viral on social media platforms for its eye-popping claims.
In a similar incident in another school of Nipania village, the same private contractor, Sudhakar Constructions, raised another bill worth Rs 2.3 lakh to carry out the task of applying 20 litres of paint, installing ten windows, and fitting four doors, the media reports said.
According to bills, which are circulating online, 168 labourers and 65 masons were employed to paint the wall of the school in Sakandi village, and for the one in Nipania, manpower of 275 labourers and 150 masons was used. However, ground-level reports suggested that there aren鈥檛 even that many labourers or masons in and around the two villages concerned.
The bills in question are from government schools in Sakandi and Nipaniya villages under Beohari tehsil.
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鈥 Kunal Choudhary (@KunalChoudhary_) July 4, 2025
As per the NDTV report, Sudhakar Constructions created the bill on May 5, however, it was already approved a month before it was even created by the school principal on April 4. Additionally, the bills are legally required to be presented with before-and-after pictures of the work, however, they were approved without any such photo, the report added.
Following public outrage, the state鈥檚 school education minister Rao Uday Pratap Singh directed the principal secretary and the commissioner of public instructions to initiate an investigation, Times of India reported.
Meanwhile, the Shahdol district administration has also ordered a separate probe. District collector Kedar Singh has appointed Beohari SDM Narendra Singh Dhurvey to conduct the inquiry, the report added.
鈥淎 probe has been ordered, and notices have been issued to the district education officer as well as the principals of the schools. We have also received the probe report for the Sakandi village school,鈥 Shahdol district collector Kedar Singh told the news outlet.
Based on the SDM鈥檚 findings, the Shahdol district collector ordered action against the principals of both schools and issued a notice to the officiating district education officer.
According to reports citing sources, the district collector has also ordered a thorough inquiry into all recent construction and maintenance works in government schools across the district, including the payments made for those projects.