BENGALURU: The Karnataka Rashtra Samithi (KRS), a political party, has alleged irregularities of Rs 1.98 crore in the Karnataka State Drugs Logistics and Warehousing Society in procuring PPE kits, IV fluid and dialysis machines to fight Covid-19. However, officials denied the charges.
The Samithi wrote to H K Patil, a Congress leader and Chairman of the Legislative Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee, on June 8 with documents to prove its allegations. In the letter, Deepak C N, general secretary, KRS, wrote, “We have informed you about the irregularities in procurement of PPE kits. In this case, 9 work orders have been issued to 7 companies.
Among them, two work orders have been issued to Plasti Surge Industries. In one work order, dated March 9, 2020, the price quoted for each PPE kit is Rs 330.40 and in another dated March 14, 2020 it is Rs 725. In a span of five days, double the amount was paid. Later, those PPE kits were disposed of after it came to light that they were of poor quality. A letter dated April 3, 2020 addressed to all DHOs by the KSDLWS Additional Commissioner requests them not to use the PPE kits supplied by Plasti Surge.” An email to Plasti Surge went unanswered, though four days were given to answer the queries before publishing this report.
KSDLWS ordered IV fluids from Aculife Healthcare, which had been blacklisted by Odisha and Gujarat, while Kerala too had rejected its tenders. KRS highlighted that KSDLWS purchased 60 dialysis machines between 2013 and 2016 at Rs 5,82,000 per unit. “However, 30 of them were not in use and were sold to BRS Health and Research Institute Private Limited by the Health and Family Welfare Department at Rs 24,14,298,” he said.
H K Patil said, “We have not quantified the loss to the government. On the face of it, it looks fishy. We are seeking a clearance from Speaker Vishweshwar Hegde Kageri to visit and inspect KSDLWS, Covid hospitals and quarantine centres. There are allegations of old and broken ventilators being purchased and masks being procured at exorbitant rates.” Asserting that the allegations are false, Manjushree, Additional Director, KSDLWS, said, “We had called for tenders from Fresenius Kabi Company, but they said they needed 2-3 months to deliver IV fluids.
Our stocks were at 2-3 per cent. Tamil Nadu had ordered from Aculife and we did our due diligence before ordering from them. The firm had also got a stay order on blacklisting by the Odisha government. As for PPE kits, we first ordered a batch with six components, but the next order had 10 components and the price went up.” On dialysis machines sold at a lesser cost, Pankaj Kumar Pandey, Commissioner, Health and Family Welfare Department, said, “They were old and after depreciation, they were offered to BRS.”