New Delhi: The Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) has arrested 10 people for allegedly being involved in the supply of sub-standard items to government hospitals in Delhi, an official statement said on Wednesday.
Seven of them are suppliers and three laboratory owners, it said and identified them as Hemant Joshi (43), Rahul Chaurasiya (31), Kamal Deep Singh (33), Rajesh Malhotra (58), Shahid Chaudhary (31), Shekhar Sharma (36), Bipin Kumar Pathak (58), Arjinder Pal Singh (61), Kapil Makhija (31) and Harneet Singh Bindra (42).
According to ACB, the suppliers or manufacturers arranged receipts of prescribed items from officials of the hospitals against the supply of sub-standard items and even in the case of short- or non-delivery.
The laboratory owners or managers used to supply forged lab reports against the sub-standard items, the statement said.
On August 18, 2023, six teams of the vigilance wing of the Health and Family Welfare Department visited hospitals and collected samples of various items. These samples were sent to different labs and the majority of them either were found sub-standard or failed during testing, a senior official said.
During the initial investigation, it indicated that the alleged firms and suppliers had provided the requisite items through the GeM portal. The items were supposed to be delivered with desired certificates from government-approved labs, the official said.
Fourteen firms connected with the supply in question and belonging to the Delhi-NCR have been inspected. Relevant documents containing supply details have been seized and the suppliers have been questioned, the official added.
Further investigation into the case revealed that the government officials intentionally avoided taking the desired lab reports and licences as mentioned in the GeM contract order, ACB head Madhur Verma said.
In some of the cases, the licence numbers mentioned by the supplier were found to be fake. In most of the cases, batch numbers of delivered items did not match with the batch numbers quoted by the manufacturer or supplier, he said.
It has also surfaced that sub-standard material was purchased from local markets with no parameters at all and was supplied to the hospitals. Receiving of the items was also found given by the concerned officials against nil delivery or short delivery. Instances have been noticed where the approval committee had done approval even before receiving the material, Verma said.
It is also found that the government officials concerned and suppliers or traders keep committing forgeries in documents even after the issue was taken up for investigation, officials said.
