A local health official who left India in 2011 and is a green card holder in the United States has been working as a shadow employee, drawing a full salary, an enquiry by the civil surgeon has found.
Gurpreet Singh, a multipurpose health care worker (MPHW) at the Primary Health Centre (PHC) Chanarthal Kalan in Fatehgarh Sahib district, applied for a five year unpaid leave in July 2011. He was supposed to rejoin work in July 2016, but did not report to the department till July 2020.
In July 2020, Gurpreet wrote to the department to join back and was appointed at the sub centre in Battian Dhahan as a MPHW despite there being no post.
During an inquiry, sector multipurpose health supervisor Amritpal Singh revealed that the attendance sent by Gurpreet had not been signed by any official. The records also showed that he had not attended any block level meetings in the period.
The sub centre was under the community health centre (CHC) Koom Kalan, where Gurpreet served under two senior medical officers (SMO). One of them was found to not have toured the sub centre at all, while the other found Gurpreet missing during a tour but only asked for a reply via post.
Notably, in December 2021, Gurpreet was promoted as multipurpose health supervisor. With the promotion, he was also transferred to PHC Jamalpur in the Sahnewal block. However, there was no position available for Gurpreet in the sector, and the then Sahnewal SMO transferred him to PHC Mullanpur, which happened to fall under the jurisdiction of Sudhar SMO.
{{/usCountry}}Notably, in December 2021, Gurpreet was promoted as multipurpose health supervisor. With the promotion, he was also transferred to PHC Jamalpur in the Sahnewal block. However, there was no position available for Gurpreet in the sector, and the then Sahnewal SMO transferred him to PHC Mullanpur, which happened to fall under the jurisdiction of Sudhar SMO.
{{/usCountry}}The inquiry found that Sahnewal SMO took his joining and did not share any information with Sudhar SMO or the civil surgeon’s office. It was also revealed that Sudhar SMO signed his pay bills and did not even bear initials of any clerical staff.
The new Sahnewal SMO, Dr Ramesh Kumar, reported the matter to civil surgeon Dr Jasbir Singh Aulakh in December 2023 after finding the irregularities. Following the complaint, Aulakh formed a board of inquiry with Sahnewal and Sudhar SMOs.
Records with forged
handwriting being probed
“Our inquiry has revealed that the man never showed up even after joining back in 2020. The attendance records turned out fraudulent. He was found absconding,” Aulakh said.
“In the malaria registers at Bhattian Dhahan PHC, the handwriting, purportedly of Gurpreet, did not match with his handwriting in other documents. That needs to be looked into by forensics experts to find out who was abetting his fraud,” he added.
Aulakh revealed that during the inquiry, they found a letter from the Consulate General of India, San Francisco, from the PHC Chanarthal Kalan, which said Gurpreet was a green card holder in the US.
“We wrote to the passport office regarding the details of his foreign travels, but no information could be gathered,” he said, recommending the health department director to forward the case to vigilance.
The inquiry also held the then SMOs of CHC Koom Kalan and Sahnewal of gross negligence. Two workers from sub centre Bhattian Dhahan have also been held guilty of misleading the board for giving fake alibi for Gurpreet.
Aulakh, meanwhile, has also directed the SMOs to conduct regular physical verification of workers under them to ensure such incidents are not repeated.