Chahal appears before ED, denies wrongdoing in jumbo centre contracts
The ED has initiated a probe based on an FIR registered by the Azad Maidan police on BJP leader Kirit Somaiya’s complaint that M/s. Lifeline Hospital Management Services (LHMS) had secured the contract for providing manpower for jumbo Covid centers at Dahisar and Worli on the basis of forged and fabricated documents, and allegedly caused a loss of ₹38 crore to the BMC.
Mumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Monday questioned municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal over alleged irregularities in awarding of tenders to run two jumbo Covid centers in the city.
The ED has initiated a probe based on an FIR registered by the Azad Maidan police on BJP leader Kirit Somaiya’s complaint that M/s. Lifeline Hospital Management Services (LHMS) had secured the contract for providing manpower for jumbo Covid centers at Dahisar and Worli on the basis of forged and fabricated documents, and allegedly caused a loss of ₹38 crore to the BMC.
Iqbal Singh Chahal who was at the ED office for four hours said he had clarified to the ED that the BMC does not have an investigation wing and does not verify documents annexed to bids submitted by parties, unless there are specific complaints of wrongdoings. He said he had separately told the Mumbai police to take appropriate action if they find that forged documents had been submitted for securing the contract.
The MVA government led by Uddhav Thackeray had instructed the BMC at the start of the Pandemic to set up field hospitals across the city to cope with increased caseload. These jumbo centres played a key role in the city’s response to Covid, and the initiative was widely lauded.
Last year, even before the fall of the MVA government, Kirit Somaiya had trained his guns on two of these centres run by LHMS partners Sujit Mukund Patkar--a close associate of Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut-- Dr Hemant Gupta, Sanjay Shah and Raju Salunkhe.
It is Somaiya’s contention that LHMS was given the contract to supply medical, paramedical and ancillary staff for the jumbo Covid centers at Dahisar and Worli even though the company did not have any experience in providing healthcare facilities or medical services. It is also his allegation that the pre-bid meeting was called on June 25, 2020 and the expression of interest for the same was called on June 27. LHMS was created on the intervening June 26th. “Thus, even before the partnership firm came into existence, the accused attended a pre-bid meeting and secured the contract for operation and management of Covid ICU beds at Dahisar, and were requested to mobilize manpower within seven days,” states Somaiya’s complaint filed before a metropolitan magistrate court in March last year.
It may be recalled that this was the time the Epidemics Diseases Act (1897) was invoked giving sweeping financial powers to the Municipal Commissioner with regards to Covid-related expenditure.
Ravi Raja, former leader of opposition and former Congress corporator in the BMC threw light on the workings of the BMC in this period: “During the pandemic, a lot of work orders were issued without following proper procedures and it was raised in the standing committee that they should submit details of the contract. In October 2020, after six months, the first standing committee was held, and 190 proposals were tabled for post facto sanctions where we rejected many of the Covid-related expense proposals. Those proposals were referred back to the municipal commissioner for comments and subsequently many proposals were tabled and cleared.”
“As per the Mumbai Municipal Corporation Act,1888, expenditure above ₹50 lakh requires the sanction of the standing committee. The-then MC Praveen Pardeshi had tabled a proposal that owing to the emergency of the pandemic, the BMC wanted a blanket permission from the standing committee to go ahead with all Covid-related expenses. This is why the extraordinary financial power was granted to the civic chief,” explains Raja. The first Covid centres at BKC and NSCI were started, and after Iqbal Singh Chahal was appointed as the new municipal chief in May 2020, post facto sanctions were given for the two centres.
The BMC’s Expression of Interest (EOI) document, a copy of which is with HT, called for operation and management of Covid-19 ICU beds for the duration of six months. For operation and management of ICU beds in these Jumbo facility centres, entire clinical and non-clinical management of these beds along with consultant specialists, RMO doctors, nurses and ward boys/ bed attendants were proposed to be outsourced. The EOI was published on MCGM portal between June22, 2000 to June 27, 2020 inviting bids.
The pre-bid meeting was arranged with additional municipal commissioner (city) on June 24, 2020. The minutes of the pre-bid meeting were displayed on BMC’s portal on June25, 2020. Apparently, in response to EOI only four bids were received by the BMC for the subject work.
“As there was poor response and given the urgency, the municipal commissioner approved the issuance of the work order. After negotiations M/S Lifeline Hospital Management services accepted the work at NSCI Worli for 50 beds at ₹6000 per bed per day and at Dahisar Jumbo centre for 100 beds at the rate of ₹6900 per bed per day,” the BMC’s EOI stated.
“In March 2020, during the onset of Covid in India, we had only 3,750 beds. With the population of Mumbai being 1.40 crore, there was an acute shortage of beds. During that time, it was predicted that lakhs of Corona patients will be found in Mumbai. This prediction later came true. Mumbai had eleven lakh Covid patients,” said Chahal after his questioning by the ED on Monday.
“The Covid centres that were set up at various places in Mumbai were built by non-governmental organizations. Hence, BMC spent zero rupees in setting up these Covid centres as there was no construction cost involved. A total of ten such Jumbo Covid centres were constructed in Mumbai. When they were ready we asked the state government about the manpower to run such Covid centres. How could we bring doctors and nurses on such a large scale? That’s when it was decided to outsource manpower while the machinery, housekeeping, catering and medicines would be ours. So, we decided to outsource doctors, paramedical and ancillary staff without inviting tenders and we raised expression of interest (EOI) and made use of the Epidemic Act to award contracts.”
When contacted, a spokesperson for LHMS said, “We have moved a defamation case against Somaiya and the sessions court has asked him to not level any allegations which are not factual. We have now filed a criminal defamation suit against him, despite which he continues to do so for political reasons. The information given to the media against us is false and misleading.” The spokesperson clarified that the case of fraud that Somaiya refers to has been registered against Eternal Healthcare Management Services Limited with whom LHMS tried to enter into partnership in February 2022, but later withdrew.
In response to Somaiya’s allegation of the company being formed just days ahead of the allocation of contract, the LHMS spokesperson said: “The BMC had called for the expertise of a person or group of people to handle the jumbo centres, and our firm was headed by Dr Hemant Gupta, a reputed name in the medical field. Gupta and Patkar hold 30% shares each and the other two partners hold 40% in the firm registered as a partnership company.” All relevant documents, he said, had been submitted to the ED. Sanjay Raut refused to comment on the case.
