Lucknow:
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Saturday conducted searches at 23 locations in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in connection with its probe into the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).
According to reports, CBI sleuths raided chief medical officers and deputy chief medical officers in cities including Meerut, Varanasi, Lucknow, Kanpur and Patna.
Yesterday, four new cases were registered in connection with the scam related to alleged embezzlement of central funds allocated under NRHM. CBI sources said agency teams swooped down on 30 locations, including the medicine market in Aminabad in Lucknow, as part of a massive search operation. According to sources, residences of some doctors and medicine suppliers were also covered in the operation.
The total number of criminal cases registered in connection with the scam has so far has reached 12.
The CBI action comes days after it questioned former Family Welfare Minister of the state, Babu Singh Kushwaha, who is a prime accused in the scam. Guddu Khan, a medical supplier close to Babu Singh Kushwaha, was also raided yesterday.
In 2005, the UPA government launched the National Rural Health Mission Scheme. Huge amounts of money were to be sent to states to provide accessible and affordable health care to the poorest families in remote regions. The government's auditor has said that more than half of 8500 crores sent by the Centre to UP (from 2005 to 2011) have been embezzled.
The large scale bungling in the centrally funded programme involved not only heavy over-invoicing, but even fake supply of medicines and hospital equipment by fictitious firms as well as huge kickbacks in construction activity undertaken with a view to improving the available health services in government-run primary health centres in rural areas.
The scam saw corrupt bureaucrats and politicians siphoning away crores meant to improve health facilities. It was birthed in the Family Welfare department in Mayawati's government, which handled the huge funds sent by the Centre for the NRHM Scheme. Mr Kushwaha was sacked by Mayawati in April last year after the murders of three chief medical officers forced the government to acknowledge the deep-rooted graft in his department.
Two senior doctors affiliated to the department were murdered; another was found dead in a Lucknow jail in mysterious circumstances. In January, an officer with the UP Jal Nigam committed suicide allegedly because he was being investigated for his role in the scam.
The Allahabad High Court has ordered the CBI to investigate the trio of deaths and the swindle entrenched in the department. Chief Minister Mayawati has, however, described the investigation into the swindle, and its findings, as a political conspiracy against her.