Anti-corruption branch raids Delhi's LNJP hospital over supply of alleged 'sub-standard drugs'
Jan 10, 2024
New Delhi [India], January 10 : An anti-corruption branch team on Tuesday, raided the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital over alleged procurement and supply of spurious and non-standard drugs in government hospitals.
According to ACB, on January 5, a case was registered under Section 7A POC (corruption), Section 120B of IPC, Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
A senior ACB official said that the team interrogated the staff and officials of LNJP Hospital and also seized some documents related to the case. The ACB team remained present in the hospital for about 3 hours.
The complaint was done by the Deputy Secretary Vigilance Health and Family Welfare Department. It was alleged that medical and surgical equipment's being supplied by 13 different suppliers were not of good quality.
As per the FIR, ACB has also taken some samples from the hospital which included rolled bandage, absorbent cotton, latex examination gloves and infusion set and have been sent for testing.
The FIR states that medical and surgical equipment's are supplied to Delhi's LNJP, Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS), Deen Dayal Upadhyay (DDU), Sanjay Gandhi Memorial, JSS and GTB hospitals.
Days after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) directed a CBI probe into the matter, the Delhi government said that all the sub-standard items were brought from the Central government's portal GeM (Government e Marketplace).
The Delhi government added said that the investigation should be done by the CBI.
"All the sub-standard items were bought from the Central Government portal called GeM. The rules of finance have made it mandatory that Govt Departments should buy products from GeM and only if they are not available on GeM, they can be bought from open market through tenders. It is surprising that Central Govt is allowing such Vendors on its portal who are giving substandard products," the Delhi Government said in a statement.
"It is very important that such products are being supplied not just to Delhi Govt, but also other state Govts and the Central Govt. This should be investigated by the Central Agency like CBI so that it brings out the truth about GeM," the statement added.
