Patna, March 20: The high court today asked the state government to provide details of the Rs 3,500 crore-fund, which the state received under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), close on the heels of the health scam in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.

A division bench of Justice T. Meena Kumari and Justice Jyoti Saran asked the health secretary to file an affidavit within three weeks, providing details as to how and where the money was spent. The court also asked the government to furnish break-up details along with the receipts for the funds, which were utilised under the scheme.

The court passed the direction while hearing a PIL filed by non-government organisation Centre for Health and Resource Management (Charm) through its director Dr Shakeel. The PIL claimed that the delivery of service under the NRHM scheme was dismal. The petitioner’s counsel, Vikash Kumar Pankaj, submitted that the Centre released a sum of around Rs 3,500 crore under the NRHM scheme to the state government but the facilities had not reached the beneficiaries.

Of Rs 3,500 crore, the petitioner gave the year-wise break-up of fund allocation under the scheme. The state received Rs 423 crore in 2007-08, Rs 783.19 crore in 2008-09, Rs 826 crore in 2009-10 and Rs 1,434 crore in 2010-11. Maternal and child healthcare facilities are to be provided under the health scheme.

Pankaj said Charm conducted a survey in Munger district in which it was found that implementation of the scheme was poor. Photographs have been submitted to support the claim. The petitioner claimed that though Munger has been chosen as one of the districts for implementation of the health scheme, many districts in the state were still out of its purview.

The court, during hearing on February 6, expanded the ambit of the petition, which was initially confined to Munger, to the entire state. It also gave state government time to file its report on three previous occasions but it failed to provide a satisfactory reply.