2 docs held in equipment purchase scam

2 docs held in equipment purchase scam

Chinese Spare Parts Used To Assemble Ultrasound Machine At Lower Cost

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:11.11.2020

Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-corruption has uncovered a scam in Thiruvarur district where around ₹50 lakh meant for purchase of medical equipment like Doppler Ultrasound and Puerpal Sterilisation kits was allegedly misappropriated by two former deputy directors of health services.

In one of the procurement orders, the DVAC discovered that instead of the original equipment, an assembly made from spare parts bought from China with cracked version of the software was used. This was bought at 12% of the cost of the original equipment.

The FIR, which was filed last week, has named Dr R Sumathi and Dr A Subramani as accused. The former works in Tirunelveli district, while the latter is posted in Trichy currently.

DVAC said the scam pertains to works under state balanced growth fund at a cost of ₹74.5 lakh through the state planning commission in 2015.

Nine pieces of Doppler Ultrasound were meant to be procured. It is an equipment which detects foetal growth and congenital malformation during pregnancy. As per the purchase order, the brand to be procured was Ethiroli Tiny 16A. However, this is not a standard brand in ultrasound machines, DVAC said.

In the register, DVAC discovered that entries were made under the brand name of Wipro Ge Logiq 100 Pro, which wasn’t in the order. Only eight machines were supplied, of which only one was of the Ethiroli make. The remaining seven were assembled using Chineese spare parts and cracked software at a cost of ₹30,000.

But for the machines, payment of ₹31.36 lakh at a unit price of ₹3.48 lakh was made. This translated into a misappropriation of ₹28.96 lakh with the bills signed by Dr Sumathi, DVAC said.

Sterilisation kits were bought for unit price of ₹24,970, but the original price was only ₹4,000. Payment was made for 10 kits, while only two were supplied. This was a misappropriation of Rs2.41 lakh by Dr Subramani, DVAC said.

A similar scam was detected in the purchase of an Implantable Loop Recorder, which is a cardiac monitor, wherein ₹1.9 lakh was paid for the recorder which costs only ₹80,000.

Operation tables, which cost ₹40,000, were procured at ₹99,875. Generators costing ₹1.1 lakh were bought for ₹2 lakh.

Procedures of the TN Medical Services Corporation were not followed, DVAC said. They were booked for corruption and criminal breach of trust.

The FIR, which was filed last week, has named Dr R Sumathi and Dr A Subramani as accused. The former works in Tirunelveli district, while the latter is posted in Trichy currently.