NRHM scam: UP buys Rs 1,200 eye chart at Rs 21,000

In further consolidation of investigations conducted in National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam so far, the Central Bureau of Investigation has discovered that most of the medical equipment were bought from Delhi’s Sadar Bazar for peanuts and were sold off at astronomical prices to the Mayawati-led UP government under the NRHM scheme.

Eye charts were sold at Rs 21,000 each (real cost is Rs 1,200); baby weighing machine at Rs 2,500 (real cost Rs 750) and patient’s swivel stool at Rs 4,800 (real cost Rs 650)!

The CBI did file a chargesheet today, but it deals with only a small fraction of the scam. It was filed only with an intention to ensure that persons arrested in the NRHM case could not seek the bail. Under the law, the CBI has to file chargesheet within 90 days of arrests.

The startling facts that have resurfaced during consolidation of NRHM investigations that medical equipment were bought in a very unprofessional manner from non-medical shops in Sadar Bazar. These equipment were assembled in kits were then sold off at astronomical price.

Eye charts display rows of alphabets or symbols, small and big, to test your visual power. The chart is basically is an `E game’ chart, which you can even download through the Google search and put it in a well-illuminated area for testing your eyes.

Medical contractors sold off each ’eye chart’ for Rs 21,100 to the Mayawati government’s health department under NRHM. The same eye chart, as shown in the CBI investigations, was procured for a mere Rs 1,200. The profit was nearly 20 times the cost of the chart. These contractors, not many in the medicine business earlier, supplied thousands of such charts for Uttar Pradesh’s village population.

Trailing the NRHM amount disbursed in the last five years (2007-12) in Uttar Pradesh (which was precisely Rs 9,472.25 crore), the scam has taken the CBI to busy and narrow streets of Sadar Bazar. Virtually, every medical item was bought from here. All of them were locally made and none branded.

The CBI has apparently made a list of these medical items and checked ‘real price’ of these items from shops in Sadar Bazar.

Sample these:

• Digital dopplers used for gynecological purposes was sold to the UP health department at Rs 35,000 each. The price at Sadar Bazar is Rs 6,000.

• Weighing scale for babies was sold off to the department at Rs 2,700, while the Sadar Bazar price is Rs 750.

• Swivel stool on which patients sit cost the UP health department Rs 4,800 each. The price at Sadar Bazar is Rs 650.

• Wheelchairs were sold to the department at Rs 10,490 each while the actual cost is Rs 3,000 each.

• A stretcher trolley was procured at Rs 14,000 each under NRHM while the actual cost is Rs 3,000.

• A dustbin for medical room has cost the UP government Rs 4,200. It sells at Rs 1,970 in Sadar Bazar.

The CBI has seized procurement bills from these contractors. A company allegedly involved in these purchases is M/s Surgicoin and the contractor is Naresh Grover. Some other companies suspected to be involved in similar purchases are Radhey Shyam Enterprise, owned by one Virender Goyal, and Axis Marketing, owned by Neeraj Upadhyay.

Moradabad-based businessman Saurabh Jain, perhaps the closest to former Family Welfare Minister Babu Ram Kushwaha, got a lion’s share in this loot. He supplied medical kits for child delivery worth Rs 32 crore. These medical kits were supposed to be highly sophisticated and sanitised, consisting of burn gel, antimicrobial wipes, syringes, wound closure kit, antibiotic ointment, respiratory mask etc.

Now arrested, Saurabh Jain revealed to the CBI that he used to buy empty kits and used to fill them with assembled medical items bought from the Sadar Bazar. He began his life selling and supplying school furniture and stationary initially. Later he opened a medical store in Moradabad and managed to get nearly Rs 800 crore worth contracts under NRHM.

Even his wife Sita Jain was party to his business. Kushwaha had awarded Rs 13 crore worth project for outdoor media material, which involved erecting of hoardings and banners under NRHM, to Saurabh Jain’s wife.

Not only this. The CBI has discovered that the UP’s health department had hired thousands of ambulances during NRHM operations. One such bill worth Rs 22.20 crore was footed by Om Raj Enterprise for hiring ambulances helping carrying pregnant women for emergency delivery.

The CBI took a sample of 60 vehicles number plates from the list that Om Raj Enterprise had submitted. All of these vehicles turned out to be either scooters (two-wheelers) or motorcycles or private/commercial vehicles. None of these vehicles was fit to serve as an ambulance.

Firstpost team visited a health sub-centre constructed at Chandrika Bakas Purva in Sonia Gandhi’s constituency Rai Bareli. This sub-centre is supposed to serve as medical centre for four or five adjacent villages. An auxiliary nurse midwife is supposed to be posted here.

A 73-year-old man living exactly opposite this sub-centre, Ram Swarup, told Firstpost: “Not even once any medical nurse or officer sat in that shabby building. This building is abandoned right from its inception in 2009. It was used as barat ghar twice, but now its roof leaks during rains.”

This building is simply uninhabitable. In three years, it remains in a damaged state. The contractor who constructed it, had received Rs 10 lakh or above under NRHM. In Rai Bareli district alone, 222 health sub-centres were constructed. It is not difficult to find how many of them were constructed in 72 districts of UP. Many of them are still serving as health centres today.