CBI claims to have cracked Uttar Pradesh's NRHM scam

Lucknow: The Rs 5,700-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam is now knocking on the doors of former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati. Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) sources have told CNN-IBN that the Mayawati government split the Health Ministry to facilitate the appointment of 100 additional chief medical officers (CMO), who were tasked with just handling NRHM funds.

CBI claims that the plan was to appoint an additional 100 CMOs who would only look after the implementation of the NRHM and report directly to former family welfare minister Babu Singh Kushwaha and the then principal health secretary Pradeep Shukla. These 100 CMOs were appointed despite the fact that each of the 72 districts in the state already had a CMO.

Sources say these 100 CMOs were the root cause of corruption in NRHM. The Uttar Pradesh Health Ministry was bifurcated into Health and Family Welfare, and special CMOs appointed to take care of NRHM. CBI sources say appointments on such a large scale could not have been done without the knowledge of the top BSP leaders.

Former family welfare minister Babu Singh Kushwaha has been arrested in the alleged scam.

Sources say the BSP government of Mayawati ignored a letter from Union Health Secretary Sujatha Rao in 2010 against the bifurcation.

Several medical officers were elevated as CMOs ignoring eligibility. These CMOs allegedly facilitated the multi-crore scam which has already seen the murder of two CMOs.

The CBI has already registered a case against Kushwaha and other BSP leaders accusing them of being involved in the scam. The agency on Thursday filed another chargesheet in scam against Kushwaha and BSP MLA Ram Prasad Jaiswal.

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