A doctor whose neonatal care initiative in Bengal gave the rest of the country a model to follow has been denied permission by the Mamata Banerjee government to be a team leader in a nationwide child health programme.

The state health department has said “it is not possible” to release Arun Singh, who once headed the neonatology wing at SSKM Hospital, from a facility on the northern outskirts of Calcutta that does not have a unit to make use of his expertise.

Singh had been transferred to Sagar Dutta Medical College in Kamarhati last October, allegedly because he was perceived to be pro-CPM and had a difference of opinion with a member of an experts’ panel handpicked by Mamata. The Union health ministry’s invitation to be a senior adviser to the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram would have been Singh’s escape from what is seen as a “punishment posting”.

Since December 2012, the health ministry has written at least four letters to the Mamata government, requesting that Singh be relieved of his present responsibilities for two years. There have also been several follow-up telephone conversations between ministry officials and bureaucrats in Bengal.

The programme for which Singh’s expertise has been sought is meant to benefit 27 crore children.

“We understand that Dr Arun Singh has wide experience in the area of child development and management of newborn diseases.... Therefore, you are kindly requested to sanction him leave and relieve him from his current assignment so that he can contribute in providing technical assistance to the ministry of health and family welfare in national interest,” Anuradha Gupta, additional secretary and mission director, National Rural Health Mission, wrote in a letter dated January 9 to chief secretary Sanjay Mitra.

The director of medical education, Sushanta Banerjee, defended the government’s decision to keep the neonatologist tied to his post, citing an inquiry against him. “There are several charges and allegations against Dr Singh, so we have told the Union health ministry that he can’t be released now. Certain official norms need to be followed,” Banerjee said.

Singh appeared resigned to the government’s whim when Metro contacted him.

“I will abide by whatever the state government says. I have no complaint against any individual. But given the opportunity, I would like to work for a project that involves the welfare of 27 crore children,” he said.

Singh, who did his master’s in paediatrics at AIIMS in Delhi, had set up the neonatology department of SSKM in early 2000 and played a key role in getting a multi-crore project approved for neonatal treatment and research at the hospital. He is also credited with setting up the sick neonatal care unit in Purulia, a district that once had the highest infant mortality rate in Bengal. The Purulia model is being replicated across the country.

The health department had ordered a probe into allegations of financial irregularities against Singh around the time he was transferred.

Sources close to the doctor said he had not been formally told what the charges against him were. One communiqué from the state medical council accused him of “misbehaving” with a senior member of an experts’ panel on health handpicked by the chief minister.

Although the probe officially began seven months ago, Singh has yet to receive any written or verbal communication from the health department .

A senior official at Swastha Bhavan said there was no rule to prevent Singh’s deputation outside Bengal even if he were under probe. “No criminal case is pending against him. Some departmental inquiry is on and nothing has been proved yet. He can be relieved of his present job and asked to attend hearings, if necessary,” the official added.

Doctors and officials who did not want to be named said the government was being “vindictive”, a charge not being levelled against the Mamata government for the first time. Within a week of assuming charge in May 2011, the Trinamul government had put 48 WBCS officers perceived to be close to the Left in “compulsory waiting”.

Damayanti Sen, the police officer who had contradicted chief minister Mamata’s theory about a “sajano ghatana (staged incident)” after the Park Street rape, was first transferred to the Police Training School in Barrackpore and then to the restive Darjeeling hills.

Nandini Chakravorty, secretary of information and cultural affairs, was transferred to a post that didn’t have an IAS incumbent for decades after she started asserting herself on certain issues.

Neurosurgeon Shyamapada Ghorai, a former director of the Bangur Institute of Neurosciences, was put under suspension for trying to tell the chief minister that patients might be inconvenienced if she surveyed the premises with media personnel tailing her. The probe against him hasn’t been completed.