NEW DELHI: The Delhi Legislative Assembly on Thursday revealed serious shortcomings in the handling of social welfare services and healthcare services in the national capital.The Committee on Petitions was informed to make observations based on the responses filed by government departments, government records, and the deliberations of the committee meetings, in the form of separate reports.
The committee submitted the first report titled ‘Abrupt stoppage of pensions of old age citizens in Delhi at the behest of the Lieutenant Governor’, which talked about the case of how owing to misinformation by the department, old age pensions for many beneficiaries were discontinued by the Social Welfare Department without providing sound reasons and any verification.
The second report titled, ‘Conspiracy of officials to sabotage the functioning of mohalla clinics at the behest of Lieutenant Governor’, takes up how mohalla clinics were suffering from unavailability of medicines. The staffs were also not paid their due for months.The committee requested the President of India and Union Home Ministry to take appropriate action against the L-G and Chief Secretary.
Committee Chairman Akhliesh Pati Tripathi said, “Chief Secretary, Finance Secretary, Health Secretary and Social Welfare Secretary were found guilty of sabotaging the government in the report. Centre has not been paying its share of Rs 200 in the Rs 2,000 pension provided in Delhi.”“Such insensitive officers should never be given any frontline responsibility. It should be recorded in their service records that they are careless,” Tripathi added.
The committee on Wednesday tabled another report and alleged that the functioning of OPD counters in state-run hospitals was sabotaged ahead of the municipal elections in 2022. Committee member and MLA Saurabh Bhardwaj said holding back allocated fund for mohalla clinics and changing the method of payment of old age pension was a “conspiracy” to defame the AAP government before the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections in December last year to help the BJP.