LUCKNOW: A day after a number of large-scale anomalies surfaced in the results of the written examination for recruitment of around 5,000 paramedical contractual posts under the National Health Mission (NHM), the first axe of action has fallen on NHM General Manager, HR, Sandeep Saxena who has been held responsible and suspended for irregularities here on Wednesday.
Even more, the state health department has ordered the NHM authorities to cancel all the results declared so far and put out the fresh list of selected candidates on the basis of cut-off marks announced on Tuesday for all the districts soon.
In fact, the NHM, under state health department, had hired a Kolkata-based Institute of Education and Examination Management (IEEM) to conduct the examination for the recruitment. It started by notifying the recruitment process and advertised it in noted dailies on July 22, 2017. This was followed by a written exam for the contractual posts of Staff Nurses, ANMs, PRO, Lab Technicians etc on November 5, 2017 across the state. The results for the same were declared on December 22, 2017, but the irregularities in the results surfaced on December 26, 2017 after it was uploaded on NHM site reflecting discrepancies.
As per the results, those who secured thee or eight marks out of 90 were shown selected and eligible for next round of the recruitment which is interview, while those who secured 64, 29 or even 18 on 90 were not selected for the next round.
Divulging the details of action taken against the NHM official, Mission’s Managing Director Pankaj Kumar said that since the cut off marks list was not it released prior to written test, so GM, HR, was suspended and a probe in to the laxity on the part of all the officials concerned was also ordered.
“The cut off marks for general category is 30 (33%) out of 90. For OBC, it is 27 of 90 (30%) and 22 of 90 for SC/ST category. In accordance to these marks, fresh results will soon be prepared and announced. Till then the previous results stand cancelled,” said Kumar.
On the other, state health minister and state government’s official spokesman Siddharth Nath Singh hinted at a bigger and stricter action in the issue. He said the goof up has been committed by the slack Human Resource officials of the NHM and the state government was inquiring into every aspect of it. “Fresh result will soon be declared,” maintained the minister.
Meanwhile, former state health minister and senior SP leader Ahmad Hassan demanded a CBI probe into the goof up and condemned the state government for discrepancies in the results. National Health Mission has had a tainted past in Uttar Pradesh. It shot to infamy in 2012 owing to a number of scams and swindling of crores that its name was changed from National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) to National Health Mission (NHM).
High-level financial irregularities in purchase of medical equipment, medicines, and other things under NRHM during 2007-2011 cost Mayawati her government in 2012. It is the same NRHM which had a scam worth over Rs 5000 crore and the then state government had ordered a CBI probe into it. Consequently, the then family welfare minister Babu Singh Kushwaha and senior IAS officer and then Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Pradeep Shukla who was also NRHM director then, were sent to jail. The case is still going on in special CBI court. A number of suppliers, hundreds of doctors were incarcerated and three CMOs were murdered by the kingpin of the racket and a deputy CMO was killed in jail.