Covid supply scam: BMC Admin, Doctors in Last Minute Scramble for Documents That ED Wants

Mumbai: The BMC administration is scrambling to collect information sought by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) probing the alleged Rs4,000 crore Covid supply scam. Top civic officials are in a damage control mode and have asked 350 doctors and medical support team at the BMC’s 16 peripherals hospitals, five specialty hospitals and four medical colleges to provide details of Covid supply purchase orders for which tenders were floated and approved by the BMC Central Purchase Department (CPD) and additional municipal commissioner P Velrasu.

Senior nurse: Those who worked during the pandemic are being targeted now

Rued a senior nurse with a BMC hospital, “Those who worked during the pandemic are being targeted now. We were told that no patient should die. We had ordered supplies from CPD. The order was approved by IAS officers and we are paying the price for it.”

Doctors and nursing staff feel they are the victims of the BMC administration’s lapses and irregularities in Covid supply tenders under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) investigation by ED.

Velrasu has asked all the civic hospitals to upload budget utilisation during the pandemic on ‘material management module’ and ‘project module’ for detailed accounting. The submission needs to be within 24 hours on a dedicated email created by the BMC’s IT department.

“BMC bosses removed the purchase order placed by individual hospitals and Covid centres. Less than half the purchase orders placed by individual hospitals or centres was provided by the CPD and now hospitals are being asked to verify and give certification of supplies used. Doctors are being asked to add the missing purchase orders,” complained a doctor at Nair Hospital.

The ED has asked the BMC to furnish information on Covid medical supplies used between March 2020 and June 2023 seeking details of total expenses, payments to each supplier, item supplied, bank details of vendors and total tenders during the pandemic.