Ranchi, Oct. 17: Civil surgeons posted in disease-prone districts of the state have allegedly siphoned off about Rs 24 crore by supplying spurious medicines to government hospitals and primary healthcare centres in the past two years.
Sources said preliminary investigations carried out by the government revealed that the alleged bungling, which is an extension of the unified Bihar’s Rs 300-crore medical depot scandal, involved at least seven civil surgeons posted primarily in the more backward and disease-prone districts of the state.
The revelations have spread panic in government circles as reports of dozens of deaths due to malaria and TB continue to pour in from Chhatra, Giridih, Palamau and Hazaribagh districts of the state.Karnataka Drugs and Pharmaceutical Ltd (KDPL) manufactures 31 listed life-saving drugs. “However, photocopies of KDPL profile seized from the offices of several surgeons showed that KDPL had supplied at least 67 types of drugs to Jharkhand, revealing that 36 brands allegedly manufactured and supplied by them were either fakes or spurious,” sources said.
Sources added that no original KDPL list was found to be available at any of the civil surgeons’ offices.
Sources said the civil surgeons, who had got hold of a profile of the manufacturer, had merely used a photocopy machine to add to the official KDPL drugs list. In another instance, sources said documents collected by the government revealed that Maharashtra Drugs and Pharmaceutical Ltd (MDPL) had been a major supplier of several life-saving drugs to the state. “A spot enquiry by the government revealed that MDPL had long ceased to be in existence and hence all drugs reportedly supplied by MDPL were fakes,” sources added.
Sources said after the creation of Jharkhand, the government had been allocating at least Rs 1 crore to each of the 22 civil surgeons posted in the districts to ensure unrestricted supplies of medicine to the various healthcare centres under their jurisdiction.
Sources said compared to the Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1.5 lakh that was being allocated under the Bihar regime, the increased allocations had come as a boon to “scamsters posted at various civil surgeons’ offices all over the state”.
Sources said preliminary investigations had confirmed that at every civil surgeon’s office, a coterie had been operating for decades.
They said the investigations were on the verge of completion and once a probe agency is identified, the documents seized by search parties would be handed over to it.
RJD campaign: The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) has decided to launch mass campaigns in protest against the state government’s domicile and reservation policies, reports our Dhanbad correspondent. It shall also gherao the chief minister’s official residence in Ranchi on October 29.
The state unit RJD president Akluram Mahato said that mass awareness campaigns would start from October 18 and continue till the 26.
