Patna, Sept. 27: The Bihar government will hold civil surgeons responsible if any one has to carry patients' bodies from hospitals on rickshaws, carts or by other means.

Health minister Mangal Pandey said: 'It is our responsibility to ensure that if a patient dies in a government hospital, the body is transported home in vehicles. Civil surgeons will be responsible for this. We will take action against them if bodies from government hospitals is found being transported on rickshaws, carts or any other such means come to light.'

Several such instances have come to light recently when bereaved family members had to take their loved ones' body home in inhuman conditions because of non-availability of mortuary vans or other facilities.

The direction came today following a 10-hour marathon meeting with civil surgeons, regional deputy directors and deputy superintendents of government hospitals chaired by Pandey on Tuesday.

At present, the government hospitals have 49 hearses but they prove inadequate because Bihar is a highly populous state. So, the government is now planning to add some more hearses to the fleet.

'We have decided to evaluate the ambulances that were manufactured before 2010 and are currently lying in disrepair,' said Pandey. 'The ones that can be repaired will be turned into mortuary vans and deployed at government hospitals.'

The objective is to have five mortuary vans for Patna Medical College and Hospital and three each for the remaining government medical college and hospitals in Bihar, and two each for the district hospitals. There are at least 40 government hospitals in Bihar.

Pandey also said the government's faulty ambulances, which could be repaired by spending up to Rs 1.5 lakh, will be repaired by October 31. At present there are 280 such ambulances and those beyond repair would be evaluated and discarded.

'Our target is to procure 175 new ambulances. Of them 75 have already arrived in the past 45 days since I took charge of the health department,' said Pandey.

Pandey, who formally interacted with journalists for the first time today since becoming health minister, said his focus is to make the entire department functional. 'We want to provide standard health services to the people. We have been lagging behind on this front and we have been directed by chief minister Nitish Kumar and deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi to rectify the situation and improve the performance of our officials,' he said.