Pirated NCERT Books Sold at 4x Price in Bhopal, Racket Exposed

A Bhopal store was caught selling pirated NCERT books at 4–5 times the price, exposing a scam that targets students and raises concerns over fake textbooks in India.

on Mar 30, 2026

Pirated NCERT Books Sold at 4x Price in Bhopal, Racket Exposed

A shocking case of textbook theft has emerged in Bhopal. The government has found a bookshop selling fake NCERT textbooks - fake textbooks for the NCERT that cost four to five times the real price. During a raid in MP Nagar, police found many counterfeit textbooks that had been tampered with to make them look like real NCERT textbooks. All of the counterfeit textbooks had different publishers listed on them and were sold to students/parents at the beginning of the new school year when the demand for textbooks peaked. The subjects of the textbooks included mathematics, science, Hindi, and social science, and covered grades 1-12. "The purpose of this operation is to stop the illegal distribution of counterfeit NCERT textbooks, as well as the distribution of sub-par education material to students," said police. "A full report has been prepared and will be directed to the appropriate authorities for further investigation and possible prosecutions against those responsible and to investigate the counterfeit textbooks' supply chain and how they were sold." This incident points to a larger, more significant problem in the nation, as numerous recent crackdowns have caused thousands of counterfeit NCERT textbooks to be confiscated, which raises serious concerns about the availability of and ability to trust counterfeit NCERT textbooks, and about how there is a huge exploitative industry around illegally selling counterfeit NCERT textbooks.