Covid scam: Recover Rs 187.91 crore from government entities, says Karnataka panel

Bengaluru: The Justice John Michael D’Cunha Commission, which probed alleged irregularities during the pandemic, in its report has recommended the recovery of Rs 187.91 crore from three government procuring entities and recommended criminal proceedings against scores of officials for lapses.

Records accessed by DH show that three entities — the Health and Family Welfare Department, the National Health Mission, Karnataka and the Karnataka State Medical Supplies Corporation (KSMSCL) — spent a total of Rs 5,124 crore during the Covid-19 pandemic. Of this, Rs 187.91 crore has to be recovered from these entities, the report states.

This is based on four ‘Covid-19 medical procurement commission of enquiry’ reports handed over to the health department for further action, the details of which are in a note accessed by DH.

Inquiry or criminal proceedings have been recommended in at least 85 instances, involving officers of various ranks, for violating the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements (KTPP) Act or showing negligence of duty, besides recommending the recovery of expenses or departmental/criminal proceedings.

Notices have been issued to the NHM mission director, the director and the chief engineer of the health and family welfare services and the KSMSCL managing director to submit explanations for various discrepancies, including 16 missing files and irregularities in the execution of civil works for 50 oxygen generation plants.

Notices have also been prepared for 456 suppliers regarding contractual violations, delays, quality issues and financial discrepancies. The department sought the approval for its proposal to have a team of seven officers, including a senior KAS officer posted by the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms, to initiate action based on the commission’s recommendations.

“A separate office will be set up to frame the charge sheet to the accused, issue notices, record statement of objections, recovery of money and to conduct detailed investigation if needed,” it read.

The note does mention scrutinising the documents handed over to the department and issuing show-cause notices to various officers likely responsible for losses to seek their explanation.

The commission report also recommended that the chief secretary inquire into lapses by the then NHM mission director as “entrusting testing works to private labs has to be regarded as arbitrary, malafide, non-transparent and deliberately designed to deprive the procuring entity the benefits of free and fair competition and to confer undue advantage to the predetermined select private labs”.

Under the Emergency Covid Response Package, the NHM state office spent only Rs 2.63 lakh of the Rs 3.12 crore released for them; the commission noted that the unspent amount of over Rs 3 crore is still retained by the NHM “without taking any steps to surrender the surplus”.

Out of the ECRP-I funding, the NHM utilised Rs 6.93 crore towards private labs. The report noted that there was nothing in the records to show that the 14 private labs identified for sample testing were approved by the ICMR.

It further noted that the samples appeared to have been sent to six labs that were not assessed for technical capacity based on the orders of the then health commissioner.

Additionally, payments were made to eight other labs to the tune of Rs 4.28 crore for RT-PCR testing without any administrative approval.

This went against the government’s temporary regulation issued in 2020, which laid down that no private laboratory was authorised to take or test samples for Covid-19 in Karnataka.