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A day after Haryana’s main Opposition party, the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) alleged multi-crore scam in purchasing of medicines and related items in the Health Department, the state government on Monday announced to go for a “Special Audit” by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of all such purchases in the past over three years in the state.
Addressing a Press conference, the Haryana Health minister Anil Vij refuted the allegation leveled by the INLD regarding scam in his department and said that he would write the CAG to conduct “Special Audit” into all the purchases concerning to medical items at district level by the officials of the health department in past years.
He said, “If irregularity is found in any of the district, the guilty officials would be treated with strict action and nobody would be spared. Moreover, all the Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) at the district level have been asked that in future any medical purchases should be through Government e-Marketplace (GeM), a National Public Procurement Portal.”
Refuting the claims of the INLD Hisar MP Dushyant Chautala on scam involving Rs 300 Crore in Health Department, Vij said that the INLD had claimed scam of Rs 300 Crore, however, merely, Rs 87.60 Crore were released to various districts during the three years (2014-17) in the state out of which only Rs 40.89 Crore were spent on purchase of medicines and other related articles in the state.
An amount of Rs 75 Crore was released under the scheme “MukhyaMantriMuftIlaajYojana” in Haryana during this period, out of which Rs 33.03 Crore were spent on purchases while an amount of Rs 12.60 Crore was released under the National Health Mission (NHM) in Haryana from 2014-17, out of which merely Rs 7.86 Crore were spent for purchases, he added.
The minister further stated that allegations leveled by the INLD against few firms dealing with the drug items, teams of Drug Department have been sent to find out whether the said firms have licenses to deal in drug business or not.
Vij also produced documents proving that the purchase of medicines and related items took place in the state though online tenders with the approval of the constituted committee.
“Apart from this, Dushyant Chautala is welcomed to provide us any evidence proving irregularities in any of government purchase, I assure that strict action would be taken against the guilty persons,” the minister said.
INLD’s Hisar parliamentarian Dushyant Chautala on Sunday had alleged scam of nearly Rs 300 Crore in procurement of medicines and other related items in various districts of Haryana during the present Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) regime in the state.
He also sought Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the matter. According to Chautala, all the information was sought through the RTI applications. |
