The Opposition on Tuesday cornered the state government in the Legislative Council over non-payment of compensation to victims of the infamous "uterus scam" of 2012 and flogged it for arbitrarily reducing compensation amount fixed by the Bihar Human Rights Commission.
So fierce was the attack that art, culture and youth affairs minister Shiv Chandra Ram, who was replying on behalf of health minister Tej Pratap Yadav to a question by BJP MLCs Rajnish Kumar and Ramchandra Bharti, stumbled at several junctures and Harun Rashid, officiating as House chairman, heeded to the Opposition demand to postpone the question to another date so that a satisfactory reply could be given.
The uterus scam surfaced in 2012 in several districts. Doctors, private hospitals, government officials and insurance companies had connived to mislead Below Poverty Line (BPL) women about their health and unnecessarily remove their uterus to claim insurance under the Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana. The Yojana focuses on reducing BPL families' health expenses and provide easy access to medical services. Under it, beneficiaries are entitled to Rs 30,000 per annum for conditions that require hospitalisation.
BJP MLAs wanted to know how the state government could reduce compensation amount fixed by the Bihar Human Rights Commission (BHRC) from Rs 2.5 lakh and Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 50,000. "If the state government was not satisfied with the BHRC's directives, it could have appealed against it," senior BJP leader Sushil Modi said. He demanded that on International Women's Day, Wednesday, former chief minister "Rabri Devi declare that all victims would get full compensation."
Modi said not a single rupee had been paid to affected people, even as the minister said 12 FIRs had been registered. "The state government has taken steps to recover money from the doctors," Shiv said. But it was evident he did not know much about the scam, so Rashid postponed it for later.
BHRC took suo motu cognisance of the scam in August 2012 on the basis of media reports and sought a detailed probe. Chief minister Nitish Kumar constituted an expert panel for a probe that traced 709 affected people - some as young as 20 years of age. On April 28, 2016, BHRC directed the state to pay Rs 2.5 lakh to women aged 20 to 40 years, and Rs 1.5 lakh to those over 40. The money was to be deposited into their accounts in 3 months.
Power meters
Replying to a query, energy and commercial taxes minister Bijendra Prasad Yadav said Bihar had 86.94 lakh identified power consumers as on December 31, 8.74 lakh without metered connections. "We are aiming to provide electricity billing meters to all power consumers during the forthcoming financial year, 2017-18," Bijendra said.
To another question, Bijendra said there were around 84.5 lakh identified BPL families in the state, of which over 46 lakh were given power free of cost. Work was on to cover all of them by December 2017.
Black bands
NDA legislators wore black bands on their arms and foreheads to press for excise minister Abdul Jalil Mastan's removal over his attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Law and order
Opposition legislators moved an adjournment motion in the Council over recent incidents of loot of bank cash vans.
They raised slogans in the House, which led to its adjournment during Zero Hour.
