Probe rural health funds utilisation: UP government to DCs

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court,  comprising justices Pradeep Kant and Ritu Raj Awasthi today fixed 25 July as the next date of hearing of the PIL filed by a local scribe who alleged a massive scam in National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) implementation in UP and sought a CBI probe into it.

The matter of anomalies in NRHM funds came to light during a probe into chief medical officer (CMO) B P Singh's murder on 2 April which led to the resignation of family welfare minister, Babu Singh Khushwaha and health minister Anant Kumar Mishra on grounds of moral responsibility.

At the time the money estimated to be involved was a few crores and the men arrested included a former CMO, a deputy CMO who died in jail later and some other lower-level employees.

However, now it seems the rot ran much deeper and a review of the NRHM in UP, conducted in May by a team of officials from the centre, has revealed several  wrongdoings in the period between 2009 and 2011, when Kushwaha was the minister.

It now has come to light that with no accountability whatsoever, civil contracts worth Rs610 crore were awarded without tenders and around Rs1,000 crore was paid in advance to various agencies. Further, no attempt was made to recover unspent funds that added up to several crores; and there was no monitoring and quality control either.

According to chief secretary Anoop Mishra, the state government had ordered inquiries by various departments and also sought a special audit of all districts.