E-Paper
Kerala medical scam: Chennithala demands judicial probe into BJP leaders’ involvement
Kerala opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said the scam uncovered in Kerala was just the tip of the iceberg.
The Congress Party on Wednesday demanded a judicial probe by a Supreme Court judge into what it claimed a Rs 1,000 crore medical scam allegedly involving state and national leaders of the BJP.
Addressing newsmen Kerala opposition leader and senior Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala said many state and national leaders of the BJP and officials of the Medical Council of India were involved in the scam. He said recognition was granted to at least 70 medical colleges and rejected applications of all those who refused to pay the middlemen.
“What we have seen in Kerala is just a tip of an iceberg, and I presume they had amassed Rs 1000 crore funds at the national level,” he said.
The issue came to light last week when a private medical college owner in Varkala in south Kerala alleged that though he paid Rs 5.60 crore to a local BJP leader he failed to get recognition to his college. An internal party committee that probed the allegation was later leaked out. Later the party expelled a senior functionary RS Vinod from the party.
“Since this is a national scam in which national leaders of the BJP are involved, a probe by a central agency won’t suffice. It has to be a judicial probe by a sitting Supreme Court judge”, he said.
“Many colleges where the MCI inspectors detected extreme lack of facilities and a shortage of teaching staff found their place on the list while professionally managed ones were left out.”
For example, he said, the Wayanad Institute of Medical Sciences of the Abu Dhabi-based Aster group was denied permission on the grounds of not having separate canteens for girls and boys, and the lecture hall had only 150 chairs instead of 200.
There was a deficiency of 10.53% in the number of resident doctors and 11.36% in teaching staff at the medical college in the backward hilly district with the largest tribal concentration.
However, Maharaja’s Institute of Medical Sciences in Maharashtra got its recognition cleared despite having a 57.75% deficiency in teachers and 31.76% in resident doctors.
“Many of them do not have even internet access and hostel facilities or lecture halls. The number of patients admitted there were inflated and those found in these hospital beds were not patients at all,” he said, citing the inspection reports. “The MCI granted permissions disregarding these reports. It is a big scam,” he said.
