FIR in Chhattisgarh for 'irregularities' in purchase of reagents, health dept equipment of Rs 750 cr

Raipur, Jan 28 (PTI) A case has been registered in Chhattisgarh against health department officials and four firms for alleged irregularities in the procurement of medical equipment and reagent chemical, collectively worth more than Rs 750 crore, in 2023, police said.

The case was registered by the Anti-Corruption Bureau and the Economic Offence Wing.

The alleged scandal involves purchase of reagents and equipment without ensuring requirement/ availability of these items in health centres that caused loss of crores of rupees to the state exchequer.

Officials of the Chhattisgarh Medical Services Corporation Ltd (CGMSCL) Raipur and Directorate of Health Services department and four firms - Mokshit Corporation, Durg; CB Corporation, Durg; Records and Medicare System HSIIDC, Panchkula (Haryana) and Shri Sharda industries, Raipur and others have been booked in the FIR lodged on January 22, an ACB official here said on Tuesday.

No person has been named in the FIR, he said.

"Raids were conducted in connection with the case at more than a dozen locations in Raipur and Durg districts in Chhattisgarh and Haryana on Monday," the official said.

The premises of Mokshit Corporations, Shri Sharda Industries and Records and Medicare System were covered in the raids, during which several documents, electronic devices, details of bank accounts and documents were recovered, he added.

The state Public Health and Family Welfare department had issued instructions for the purchase of necessary equipment, machines etc. for the establishment of Hamar Lab (a diagnostic centre at district level and community health centre level) in 2021 (during the previous Congress government), the FIR said.

As per the sources, the then Director Health Services had informed the CGMSCL (responsible for procuring and distributing quality tested drugs and medical equipment to government health facilities) through a letter dated January 11, 2022 for the purchase and supply of the machine and reagents following which these items were purchased by the corporation in March-April 2023, it said.

The purchase of the reagents was done allegedly without proper assessment of its requirement and without complying with standard procurement procedures, the FIR said.

Sources said the directorate of health services then allegedly did not conduct a study at the district level for the requirement of reagents and machines and the demand letter was issued without assessing the availability of proper place, electricity supply, cold storage arrangement in the concerned institution for installation of the equipment, it said.

The director health services is responsible for evaluating the specification of the reagent and its quantity institution-wise (health centre-wise). An expert committee was then formed by the Director of Health Services to determine the requirement of the quantity of the reagent institution-wise. This was a kind of table top exercise. The established method of determining the requirement of any kind of medicine/reagent etc. is that the institution enters its requirement in the online model Drug Procurement and Distribution Management Information System (DPDMIS), which is compiled and finalised by the expert committee.

There was no DPDMIS model for reagents, but no such effort was made by the then Director of Health Services so that the required quantity of reagent institution-wise could be analysed, it said.

As per the information, the then director of health services neither ensured the availability of budget nor obtained any administrative approval before giving the indent for purchasing reagents. Without bringing it to the notice of the government, purchases worth about Rs 411 crore were then made, it said.

The CGMSCL purchased reagents worth Rs 300 crore from Mokshit Corporation and then supplied it to more than 200 primary health centres without any demand.

It is worth noting that those health centres do not even have CBC machines to use the said reagents, it said.

There was no arrangement, like refrigerators, for the storage of the reagents in health centres, yet it was supplied there. In this way, the officials of CGMSCL did not comply with the established procedure of the government and allegedly acted to provide benefit to the reagent suppliers, it said.

On verification, it was also found that the EDTA tube used for collecting blood samples was purchased from Mokshit Corporation at the rate of Rs 2,352 per piece, while the same material was purchased by other institutions at a maximum rate of Rs 8.50, it added.

The CSMSCL has made purchases worth billions of rupees between January 2022 and October 31, 2023 in collusion with Mokshit Corporation and its shell company C B Corporation, it said.

The investigation suggested that the CGMSCL called tenders for purchasing machines from equipment manufacturing companies, but only the tenders submitted by Mokshit Corporation and its other two companies were approved by the tender committee, while the rest of the companies were disqualified citing some or the other technical reason, it said.

The CBC machine which is sold by the manufacturing companies in the open market for only Rs 5,00,000 was provided to CGMSC for Rs 17 lakh by Mokshit Corporation through tender, it said.

Despite Mokshit Corporation not having any factory (production unit) to manufacture machine equipment used in the hospital, it got the contract on the basis of its influence and colluding with the officials.

In this way, procurement worth more than Rs 750 crore was done and fraud was committed with the government, it added. PTI TKP NP

Source: PTI