Mumbai covid centres’ scam: ED raids Shiv Sena UBT leader’s aide, other officials

The ED probe is related to a first information report (FIR) lodged at the Azad Maidan police station in August 2022 against partners of Lifeline Hospital Management Services, contracted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday carried out searches at 15 locations in Mumbai and adjoining areas as part of its money-laundering probe related to alleged irregularities in the award of contracts for running jumbo Covid centres in the city.

Enforcement Directorate (Representative Photo)

According to the people familiar with the matter, 14 premises were searched in Mumbai and one premise outside the city. Among those whose premises were searched by the agency included IAS officer Sanjiv Jaiswal and businessman Sujit Patkar, a family friend of Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut.

The agency had in January recorded the statement of city’s municipal commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal in its probe to seek information and clarifications related to the case.

The ED probe is related to a first information report (FIR) lodged at the Azad Maidan police station in August 2022 against partners of Lifeline Hospital Management Services, contracted by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) to set up two jumbo centres. Patkar is one of the firm’s partners.

According to the FIR, the company got the BMC contract by allegedly providing “forged documents and had no experience in providing manpower for any medical or health facility”.

According to the FIR, in 2020, a news journalist died of Covid in Pune after which the Pune Municipal Corporation and the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) jointly probed the firm. It also seized the security amount of Rs. 25 lakh deposited by the Lifeline Hospital Management Services.

The inquiry revealed that the company had no experience in providing medical services nor did it have adequate staff and only had junior doctors. Thereafter, the PMRDA issued a direction blacklisting Lifeline.

The BMC however still awarded Lifeline a contract worth Rs. 38 crore to provide services at two jumbo Covid centres in Mumbai. The FIR also said that the partnership firm was not registered, and the partnership deed submitted to the BMC was dubious.

In March-April 2020, when the pandemic hit Mumbai, only 3,750 beds were available at civic hospitals even as the central government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) had warned of lakhs of patients in the months to follow, according to civic officials.

Chahal had told the ED that the BMC had no mechanism at the time to verify documents submitted by various entities bidding for contracts to provide manpower for the jumbo centres or, indeed, for any other tender.

Of the 10 jumbo centres set up during the pandemic with ICU dialysis and oxygen beds, one is under the ED’s scanner, Chahal had said in January. These centres helped save more than 97,000 Mumbaikars, Chahal had said.