Maharashtra: LoP Vijay Wadettiwar Alleges ₹3,200 Crore Scam In Public Health Department

The Leader of the Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly, Vijay Wadettiwar, has accused the state's Public Health Department of a massive scam.

In a press conference held on Friday, Wadettiwar stated that on April 21, 2022, the government approved a tender for sanitation services. Administrative approval was granted for 27,869 hospital beds across eight circles in the state, marking the beginning of what Wadettiwar claims is a sanitation scam.

Initially, Rs77.55 crore was sanctioned for the project, but the ruling party later increased this amount to Rs638 crore. The daily rates for sanitation services at the primary health centres saw significant hikes, with the internal cleaning rate rising from Rs30 in 2022 to Rs84 in 2023, and external cleaning increasing from Rs3 to Rs9.40. He alleges that these inflated rates caused the tender value to jump tenfold, from Rs77 crore to Rs638 crore, in violation of financial regulations, as the budget allocation was only Rs60 crore.”

He added, “According to the rules, the tender or administrative approval should be based on the allocated budget. However, this was ignored. This breach of financial discipline led to the inflated tender. After the initial tender was issued, a petition was filed in the High Court against the 2023 administrative approval, which resulted in the court canceling the tender. Following this, the Health Minister hastily reissued the tender.

Wadettivar demanded a high-level commission inquiry into te scam. He also raised the question of whether the tender process was manipulated to benefit favoured individuals. He also questioned whether officials from the minister's office exerted pressure during the process.