Persistent Denial of information about Procurement of COVID materials by the Nabin Patnaik Govt.
Persistent
Denial of information about Procurement of COVID materials by the
Nabin Patnaik Govt. claimed
to be Transparent
Dear friends
The issue
of corruption and irregularities in procurement of COVID
Mask, PPE KIT, ventilator etc. by
the officials of
Govt. of Odisha was raised in media
and the Opposition political parties
demanding inquiry into it.
Though Sri Naba Kishor
Das, Minister for Health and Family
Welfare and Mr. Sasmit
Patra , Spokesperson of ruling
party Biju Janata Dal came out
certain clarification
denying all charges of
corruption in impromptu press meets
organized in Bhubaneswar, it could
not satisfy the
people at large. Satya Prakash
Nayak, eminent Journalist technically
countered with
all facts and figures to the clarification given by the Ruling
party and substantiated the allegation of loot of huge money in procurement by Hemant Sharma.
1. In the
midst of allegation and counter-allegation between Ruling party and the opposition parties , RTI
Application dt. 4.5.20 was filed
in the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of Odisha seeking
the following information.
i. Provide
COPY of minutes of meeting of Emergency purchasing Committee held from day one after declaration of COVID
Lockdown till 15th may, 2020 for procurement of various materials.
ii. Provide copy
of letter for appointing Hemant Sharma as Procurement officer for COVID 19
and copy of Govt. order issued in this regard.
iii. Copy of
guideline/ instruction/ circular issued in respect of purchase of items with
specification that is to be
purchased and procedure to be followed.
iv. Provide details
of specification of equipment invited by Govt. and copy
of purchasing order and
details of equipment already purchased
with name of the
companies which supplied.
2. The PIO took around one month ( violation
of section 6(3) of the RTI Act) to
forward the RTI Application
to the PIO, office of Odisha State Medical Corporation,
Bhubaneswar to supply the information which was received on 10.6.20.
The PIO
is supposed to provide the information by 10.7.20.
3. The PIO
did not respond RTI
Application. On 29.6.20, I filed first appeal to the
First Appellate Authority of OSMCL to
hear my
case and direct the PIO
to supply the information.
4. On
6.7.20, the PIO of OSMCL wrote a letter
stating that due to COVID
pandemic situation, he
requires additional time of 30 days to supply the
information.
5. On
10.8.20 , the PIO wrote another
letter seeking another 30 days time to supply the
information.
6. On 7.9.20., the First Appellate Authority heard
the case and directed
the PIO to supply
the complete information free of cost
within one month without delay
and also warned the PIO to respond RTI queries properly.
7..On 7.10.20 , the PIO supplied
the information which was found incomplete. The PIO has
supplied just copy
of few circulars issued by the Govt.
of Odisha and Govt. of India in context
of the procurement of COVID
materials , but did
not supply the following
information nor cited any
reasons for non-supply
of the information.
i.
Provide
COPY of minutes of meeting of Emergency purchasing Committee held from
day one after declaration of COVID Lockdown till 15th may, 2020 for
procurement of various materials.
ii.
Provide details of specification of equipment
invited by Govt. and copy of
purchasing order and details of equipment already purchased with
name of the companies
which supplied.
Observation
The State Government
has been constantly refuting
the allegation of corruption
in procurement and
asserting that utmost
transparency has been
maintained and due procedure
has been followed for procurement
of the COVID materials. If it is
fact, why the same
office is denying the
information and keeping the
documents in secret . It is presumed
from this correspondence that
there is huge corruption
in procurement for which
an ordinary PIO despite order of the First Appellate Authority is
denying the information under RTI Act. I
also got astonished how a
Govt. masterminding the corruption and looting public money still claims
a transparent Govt.
Pradip Pradhan
M-9937843482
Date- 20.10.20