The Delhi government did not spend Rs 245 crore out of nearly 788 crore provided by the Centre for emergency response during the Covid pandemic and also delayed release of funds for vaccination against the deadly infection, said a CAG report tabled in the Assembly on Friday.
The report also pointed that the State Rapid Response Team and Death Audit Committee, formed by the AAP government during the pandemic in 2020-2022, failed to perform their assigned tasks.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta tabled the performance audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India on Public Health Infrastructure and Management of Health Services in the Assembly.
The report said the Delhi government received Rs 787.91 crore under emergency Covid response plan from the Centre, out of which only Rs 542.84 crore was spent till November 2021.
The report pointed to "significant" percentage of savings (unspent amount) under several heads.
"The reasons for under-utilization of funds for implementation of the Covid-19 emergency response was not provided to the auditors by the Delhi government, it said.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released Rs 9.60 crore in two installments - Rs 3.46 crore in January 2021 and Rs 6.14 crore in March 2021 - to the Health department of Delhi government for "COVID-19 Vaccination” but these funds were released to Delhi State Health Society (DSHS) in April and May 2021 only, said the report.
"The DSHS had remitted the funds to the integrated district health societies for further distribution. As per utilisation certificate, Rs 7.93 crore out of Rs 9.60 crore remained unspent as of March 2022," the report revealed.
The State Rapid Response team (RRT) constituted in March 2020 in the wake of Covid to ensure emergency preparedness "failed" to carry out its assigned task, said the CAG audit report.
Its mandate was to ensure that prompt adequate emergency preparedness and appropriate response structure are put in place to tackle the outbreak.
"Audit observed shortcomings in the functioning of RRT as well as a total disregard for its instructions by various agencies. After its constitution, the RRT met only five times, all in 2020 and no meeting was held in 2021 and 2022," said the report.
Activities suggested by the RRT which could have helped in better management of COVID outbreak were not implemented which defeated the purpose of its formation, the report said.
In view of outbreak of the Covid pandemic, the Delhi government had constituted a Death Audit Committee to audit each and every death in which the patient was Covid positive in the government and private hospitals.
"It was also noticed that Death Audit Committee did not analyse any case of COVID death during the period January to December 2021. From the records furnished to audit, (January 2022 to April 2022), it was observed that out of 938 deaths reported, only 684 deaths were analysed by the Committee," said the report.
In the remaining 254 cases (27.07 per cent), case sheets of Covid deaths were not furnished by the hospitals concerned, it said.
The daily reports of Death Audit Committee were not being utilized by the Health department to chalk out strategy for better management of Covid cases, thus defeating the very purpose of constitution of the Committee, it stated.
The internal medical and death audit committees were set up at Lok Nayak Hospital (LNH), Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital (RGSSH), Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital (JSSH) and Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya (CNBC) for examining Covid deaths only.
Even in Covid death cases, 707 deaths (March to June 2020) in LNH and 42 deaths (March to May 2020) in RGSSH were not subjected to such audit, thereby depriving hospitals the feedback for making informed decisions in clinical care, added the report.
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