Chennai, Nov 7 (PTI) The DMK on Saturday lodged a complaint with the DVAC, seeking a detailed probe into alleged irregularities, including the procurement of “AI-generated” books, for the recently opened Periyar Arivulagam Library in Coimbatore.
In the complaint, DMK Legal Wing Joint Secretary I Paranthamen alleged misappropriation of public funds in the library’s book procurement.
The issue came to public attention after an interview by writer Perumal Murugan and subsequent social media posts, the complaint said.
The party alleged that Agal Vilakku Publications and Phoenix Publications supplied a large number of books that appeared to have been generated using Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and not written by genuine authors.
The complaint highlighted an “implausible number of titles” published by single authors within six months. Citing data, the DMK said 162 books were published under the name ‘Monica Ravi’. Other authors with exceptionally high counts in the same period were ‘Lakshmi Mohan’ (124 books), ‘Thamarai Panneer’ (123), ‘Thamarai Murali’ (115) and ‘Jothi Hariharan’ (114).
The party sought an investigation into whether authors such as Trisha Vijay, Sangeetha Vijay and Thamarai Panneer actually existed, and an inquiry into the identities of the officials who awarded the procurement orders.
The complaint pointed to anomalies in International Standard Book Number (ISBN) allocations, alleging that publishers obtained them in bulk blocks and not individually for each title.
The TVK government also filed a complaint with the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption on Friday. Lodged by School Education Minister A Rajmohan, it urged the agency to examine the procurement process not only for the Coimbatore library but for all government libraries in the state.
The minister alleged that a massive fraud involving misuse of technology was carried out, potentially during the previous DMK regime.
