VIJAYAWADA: Joint director of the Central Investigation Unit of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) PV Ravi Kumar has said they have arrested 12 persons in the ESI scam so far and identified the role of seven others, including the son of former minister Pithani Satyanarayana and owners of TeleHealth Services.
He said two separate cases have been registered based on a complaint filed by Indian Medical Services (IMS) director and explained that the accused officers caused a loss of `150 crore to the government exchequer.
Besides former Labour Minister K Atchannaidu, the ACB also arrested former IMS director CK Ramesh Kumar, former IMS director Dr Gadi Vijay Kumar, senior assistant Evans Ramesh Babu, office superintendent MK Pavan Chakravarthy, deputy civil surgeon V Janardhan, proprietor of Sai Ram Pharmaceuticals Gone Venakata Subba Rao, proprietors of Amaravati Medicals Chimata Venugopala Rao and Penumuchu Sreerama Murthy, proprietor of Tirumala Medical agencies Tekupalli Karthik, former PA to Atchannaidu D Murali Mohan and former administration assistant and purchase officer T Janaki Raman.
Meanwhile, search operations are being carried out to trace K Dhana Lakshmi (A3), proprietor of Jarcon Enterprises R Tejasree (A9), V Yashaswi (A10), Pithani Venkata Suresh (son of former minister Pithani Satyanarayana), T Prasad (A16), proprietor of Prodigy computers T Dinesh (A17) and Promodh Reddy and Neeraja Reddy of Tele Health Services.The ACB has identified the role of 25 more persons — both government officials and private persons — in the scam.
“Former IMS directors issued purchase orders for procurement of drugs, medical equipment, lab kits, surgical items and furniture worth `975.79 crore between 2014 and 2019. The officials purchased drugs worth `698.36 crore. The government allotted just `293.51 crore for buying drugs, but the officials purchased 140 per cent beyond the limit. Moreover, they purchased `106.32 crore worth drugs under non-rate contract from local pharmacies, which were mostly established only for this purpose,” the JD said.
Ravi Kumar said the directors and staff of the central drug store fabricated the quotations. “Some of the staff and directors established pharmacies under their relatives’ names and got wrongful gain in procurement of drugs. For example, Jercon Enterprises established by Raavi Tejaswi is wife of Varupuri Yasaswi, who is the son of third accused K Dhana Lakshmi. The agency got `12 crore purchase orders,” he explained.
Atchannaidu sent three letters in October and November 2016 to the then IMS director asking them to award work order for call center and ECG services without calling tenders.“The company used bills for the call services provided to Telangana and claimed them as AP’s. All the calls received are from Telangana. It also charged `280 extra on ECG. The government paid `4.15 crore to the company, which closed its operation soon after the Vigilance began its probe,” the JD revealed.