20 GMC faculty members 'guilty' of wasteful expenditure

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, September 30

A total of 20 senior faculty members of Government Medical College here have been found guilty of wastage of public money by purchasing 82 patient-examination tables at a cost of Rs 3,73,27,500 during the financial year 2011-12.

As per a letter written by the Vigilance Bureau to the Secretary, Medical Education and Research, to seek the department’s view before proceeding with action, these tables after purchase were dumped at stores and in the absence of any maintenance, many of these have developed defects.

The list of 20 doctors named in the letter include two former principals, Dr Santokh Singh and Dr SS Shergill. The others include Dr Nirmal Chand, Dr Preet Kamal Dedi, Dr Shiv Charan Singh, Dr PD Garg, Dr Vikram Parkash Gupta, Dr Adarsh Kumar, Dr Sudhir Khichi, Dr Neerja Sharma, Dr Karamjit Singh Puri, Dr SK Gulati, Dr Sujata Sharma, Dr SK Sandhu, Dr KK Sharma, Dr RPS Boparai, Dr Pushpa Devi, Dr HS Sohal, Dr Jatinder Singh and Dr Surinderpal Singh.

A local RTI activist who had a filed a complaint with the department earlier alleging that the tables available in the market at Rs 95,000 only where purchased at a cost of Rs 4.5 lakh each. He had alleged that these tables were never put to use and instead of purchasing the essential and required commodities, the money was wasted on these examination tables.

Talking to The Tribune, Sultaniwind alleged that the department was deliberately slowing the proceedings of the complaint for the benefit of the guilty persons. He said the Vigilance had done its part many months ago, but the department had failed so far to take action.

The college had, however, recently chargesheeted four of its employees in the matter of purchase of dialysis kits at thrice the market price. Those chargesheeted include two former principals, Dr SS Shergil and Dr Santokh Singh. The two others include Senior Assistants Pardeep Kumar and Sunil Kumar.