NRHM loot in UP may be over Rs 3700cr

NRHM loot in UP may be over Rs 3,700cr
Pravin Kumar & Shailvee Sharda, TNN | Jul 19, 2011, 06.50am IST

Read more:NRHM loot|national Rural Health Mission
LUCKNOW: The money 'saved' was money 'swindled' in the jargon of National Rural Health Mission bounty hunters in UP. The central fund --meant to uplift the rural health parametres -- has been an open field for plundering for the past six years. An NRHM activities list circulated among the CMOs (family welfare) – though, of course, not officially – narrates the story of the rampant loot. TOI is in possession of the list which functioned as a working guideline for district and block level health officials.

The list, apart from the activity heads and their respective budget, also has a crucial column: 'saving'. The range of the budget saved for each activity is between 5% and 100%. And saving in this case was a euphemism for the money that was siphoned out of the system.

It was understood that all CMOs would 'save' as per instructions given in the list and pass on to the higher-ups. The average saving from the 54 activity heads mentioned on the list is approximately 50%. UP received nearly Rs 8,200 crore under NRHM and spent Rs 7,450 crore during the past six years. Now, considering that this document was the template for 'savings', the money that leaked out of the system could be as high as Rs 3,700 crore. Besides, as acentral study points out, there was no recovery of unspent funds. So, the volume of loot could be even higher.

This also explains the clamouring for the post of CMO (family welfare), created in May 2010 to handle the fund, involvement of mafia, and a spree of killings of CMOs – with one of them being killed in judicial custody. One of the murder cases has finally reached the CBI for probe and heads of two ministers have rolled.

"This was how much CMOs passed on straight away. Their own cut was over and above this," says a former CMO (family welfare). Many CMOs TOI contacted for verification, confirmed the existence of such a list, but none of them was willing to be quoted. They also confirmed that senior government doctors paid hefty sums to get the coveted post of CMO (family welfare ), when it was created last year.

Many of them could be termed as 'honestly' corrupt, says another ex-CMO . "After 'saving' for the higherups , they released a part of the remaining for some actual work to be done. But, in many cases almost the entire remainder was consumed without spending a single paisa on the heads the budget was meant for," he said.

"When I was working, 70% of the funds was spent for public health while the remaining siphoned off. Today, it appears that the case is just the reverse ," a health director-level official, who retired a few years ago, said on condition of anonymity.