MUMBAI: Maha Vikas Aghadi leaders had alleged a "big scam" in the supply of ventilators under the PM Care relief fund. However, the Government of India has denied the allegations.
Maharashtra Congress General Secretary and spokesperson Sachin Sawant alleged that a committee of medical experts appointed by the Government Medical College Aurangabad has found that the ventilators supplied to the Aurangabad government hospital under the PM Care fund is completely useless. Earlier, NCP leader Satish Chavan also visited the hospital and made the same allegation.
According to its report, even company technicians who manufacture ventilators could not fix the problems. “This is a big scam and all the ventilators supplied to Maharashtra by the Center should be investigated at the state level,” demanded Sachin Sawant.
Sawant said the public money was collected under the PM Care Fund and wasted on the faulty ventilators. “This is unforgivable. Narendra Modi government forced all the corporates in the country to donate to this opaque relief fund. No information was provided about the fund and how much was collected and donated? Now the public must need to know how and why such highly inept companies got these contracts of supplying ventilators. It is also inhumane to think of profiteering let alone scam at a time of such a crisis of huge magnitude,” Sawant added.
“We got such reports of faulty ventilators from various parts of the states like Nasik, Beed, Aurangabad etc. Many ventilators are lying unused.”
However, the Government of India issued a note denying the allegations. It said they have been supporting the efforts of States and UTs for effective management of COVID patients, under the ‘Whole of Government” approach since last year.
“There have been some reports suggesting that ‘Make in India’ ventilators in the Aurangabad district of Maharashtra were not functioning optimally. These reports are baseless and incorrect, not supported by full information on the matter,” stated in the note.
It further said the ventilators manufactured by Jyoti CNC was supplied to Aurangabad Medical College. “Jyoti CNC is one of the manufacturers of “Make in India” Ventilators. They have supplied ventilators centrally for COVID-19 management, as per the directions of Empowered Group. The 45 ventilators were reallocated to MGM Hospital Aurangabad by the States authorities. No formal information was provided about this to Jyoti CNC. Therefore, Jyoti CNC engineers had no part in the reinstallation of these ventilators. Therefore, the installation of these ventilators at the new location was got done by the State authorities at their own responsibility.”