Jharkhand: ED arrests contractual employee in NRHM fraud case

New Delhi, Feb 19 (PTI) The Enforcement Directorate Wednesday said it has arrested a contractual employee of a primary health centre in Jharkhand as part of a money laundering investigation into alleged irregularities in the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) funds.

Pramod Kumar Singh was taken into custody on Tuesday. He was employed as a block account manager on a contractual basis at the PHC at Jharia-cum-Jodapokhar in Dhanbad, the federal agency said in a statement.

The agency said it had earlier raided the premises of Singh and seized four luxury vehicles and Rs 2.17 lakh cash from his residential premises apart from attaching immovable assets worth Rs 1.63 crore that were in the name of his wife Priya Singh.

Singh, the ED alleged, in collusion with late Shashi Bhushan Prasad, the medical officer in-charge, "misused" their official positions to "misappropriate" government funds of Rs 9.39 crore allocated under NRHM to the said PHC by the district health society.

The funds were "illegally" transferred from two official PHC bank accounts and a bank account of the PHC management society to the personal bank accounts of Singh, his family members and associates, the agency claimed.

Singh acquired "multiple" movable and immovable properties in his name as well as in the name of his wife and associates by using the proceeds of crime, it alleged.

The money laundering case stems from a CBI FIR filed against Singh and some others. PTI NES KVK KVK

Source: PTI