Suvendu Adhikari
Credit: PTI Photo
Kolkata: Senior West Bengal BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari on Thursday alleged that large-scale irregularities have taken place in purchasing materials and recruitments in the health department under the Trinamool Congress rule.
Adhikari, the Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, expressed hope that the ongoing probe by central agencies into the state of affairs at R G Kar Medical College and Hospital will blow the lid off the corruption.
The CBI is investigating the rape and murder case of a doctor in the hospital and financial irregularities there. Its former principal Sandip Ghosh is among those arrested in both cases.
Addressing a press conference here, Adhikari alleged that non-existent companies were given orders to make purchases of various equipment at exorbitant prices and execute projects.
Several health department officials receive cut money against those orders, he claimed.
“A princely sum of Rs 8 crore was spent to purchase several ambulances from north India. It is understandable that this could not be the real price of the ambulances. Medical instruments were purchased with inflated bills,” he said.
The corruption is not limited to R G Kar hospital only, claimed the BJP leader who was a member of the Mamata Banerjee Cabinet till November 2020.
“Once the CBI and ED probe into financial mismanagement in R G Kar progresses, we hope they will come find many other skeletons in the cupboard in other state-run hospitals,” Adhikari said.
Alleging irregularities in the functioning of the state’s Health Recruitment Board, he said five specific companies got “special treatment” under the TMC rule. A few of which, however, do not exist now, he claimed.
“By the name of setting up super speciality hospitals, the TMC has only effected cosmetic changes in the hospital’s exteriors in the last couple of years while corruption at gigantic scales weakened the foundation of the state healthcare system,” he said.
The Nandigram MLA also alleged that large-scale corruption had taken place in purchasing PPE kits, medicines and instruments by the health department during the Corona period in 2020-22.
This scam is not in any way less than the teacher recruitment scam of West Bengal, he said.
“The Swastha Bhavan (state health headquarters) is the den of corruption and the tremor caused by the rape-murder of our doctor daughter will shake its foundations. This has made the Mamata Banerjee government shaken,” he claimed.
Responding to the accusations, senior TMC leader Kunal Ghosh told reporters that Adhikari is trying to sensationalise matters by making “false claims”.
“If he has proof, why can’t he visit the CBI office and hand over the documents to the sleuths? He must help the agency in its probe if he works for the state’s interest,” the former Rajya Sabha MP of TMC said.
Ghosh also wondered why Adhikari did not flag these issues when he was part of the government.