Chhattisgarh SACS under CBI Investigation

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C'garh AIDS body under CBI scanner

Thu, Jul 10 02:18 AM

The AIDS Control Society of Chhattisgarh is in the midst of a

controversy with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) seeking

documents regarding its affairs and financial dealings and the state

Government refusing to cooperate till it obtained a legal opinion on

the matter.

A CBI team visited here few days ago and sought from the state

health department many details and documents pertaining to the

affairs of the State AIDS Control Society (SACS), particularly with

regard to utilisation of funds received by it from the Centre since

2003-04, official sources said.

They claimed that the central investigating agency's inquiry about

the SACS was part of its ongoing probe into the complaints of

irregularities and misuse of funds, which has come to light in a

report of Institute of Public Auditors, a body of professionals with

the Comptroller and Auditor General of India as its patron.

Earlier, the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) had also

sought from the SACS a detailed report about the utilisation of

funds under the HIV/AIDS control programme for which it provides

about Rs 4 crore every year to the state.

" It's the centre which has given us funds for the programme. If it

seeks any report or documents, we will give it to them, " state

Health Minister Amar Agrawal said.

Admitting that the CBI has sought certain documents related to the

AIDS control society, he told The Indian Express that " We have

sought an opinion from the state law department on CBI's request for

documents as the state did not seek any probe by the central

investigating agency. " He added " It is also an issue pertaining to

the powers of the Centre and the states. "

The Minister was evasive about the nature of complaints against the

AIDS control society claiming that he was not aware how the CBI came

into the picture and whether its probe was part of investigations of

any particular case.

Meanwhile, health department sources said NACO had received many

complaints about the alleged misuse of funds and large-scale

irregularities in the SACS, particularly regarding the HIV/AIDS

awareness campaign. Funds were shown as spent on awareness campaigns

through posters, banners, street plays, exhibitions and other

cultural programmes. However, it is alleged that funds were drawn

without organising exhibitions and distributing posters and

leaflets. Besides, huge payments were made to a number of cultural

organisations and groups, which existed only on papers.

There were also complaints regarding distribution of 5.6 lakh

condoms whose expiry date was over and even purchase of huge stock

of medicines by the society, which allegedly did not maintain proper

records on how these drugs were utilised.

Similar is the situation in many other programmes being run by the

state health department.

The issue of irregularities in state's " Swasthya Puran " - a state-

wide campaign to create health awareness among people - figured

during the question hour in the Assembly on Wednesday when Dhanendra

Sahu (Congress) alleged that payments were made to non-existent

cultural troupes. Health Minister Amar Agrawal said the department

had already withheld payments to many cultural troupes and the

matter was still being investigated.

http://in.news./48/20080710/804/tnl-c-garh-aids-body-under-

cbi-scanner_1.html

[Guest guest]

Dear FORUM,

/message/9008

There have been reports in the various newspapers regarding the CBI

investigation of AIDS Programme in Chhattisgarh.

 

It is really unfortunate that Chhattisgarh SACS has come to such a sorry state

of affairs that nothing less than CBI has been called in to investigate them. It

is felt that as the news about this investigation spreads across the state and

more and more people from the government set up and from the society start

coming to know about it, more difficult it would become for Chhattisgarh SACS as

a body to implement any kind of program in the state.

 

People would be scared to be associated with such a body, NGOs would also not

prefer to get involved with them and what credibility would Chhattisgarh SACS

have among the general public.

This investigation is definitely the last nail in the coffin of the already dead

AIDS Control Programme in the State.

 

May be the CBI will come and bury the AIDS Control Programme.

The issue of concern is that, whatever happened due to which CBI has been called

to investigate, is it a one time affair. CBI may take up a particular period and

then investigate, what about whatever is being done currently or whatever would

happen in future.

 

Will this investigation break the corrupt system, the body in which it happened

or the programme per se. We feel the utmost sufferer will be the programme,

which will take a lot of initiative and effort to start once these

investigations are over.

Also important is to analyse that why did the things go so much out of control

that reportedly such a huge amount of corruption was possible.

The CBI investigations will not bring back the time and money which has been

lost. The CBI will find out the people who are behind all this and prosecution

would follow but the time and money lost will not be recovered.

Also important, is the role of NACO in all these things.

 

Although it is true that reportedly corruptions have taken place in Chhattisgarh

SACS but it is also true that when these things were happening obviously the

AIDS control program had suffered a lot in the state.

 

The point to consider is that, whether NACO should have acted earlier or

established systems to avoid the conitnuance of these activities.

Also there are chances that if NACO had done a robust monitoring of the

programme activities then may be these things could have been avoided.

These are some interesting facts about Chhattisgarh SACS and the state

of affairs -

1. Most of the staff of the Chhattisgarh SACS do not have a valid appointment

letter for almost last 4 years. They were appointed in 2002 for a period of 2

years and have continued since then, without renewal of contract. The program is

being run by people who are actually not the staff of SACS.

2. NGOs implementing TIs have not been released funds for almost 1.5 yrs and the

TI program at present is at a stand still.

 

3. There always has been shortage of staff, with various staff doing multiple

and varied jobs

4. There has not been an IAS project director for last 4 years.

5. The Chairman of the society is Honble Health Minister and the patron of the

society is Chief Minister

Regards

Chhattisgarh AIDS Group

E-MAIL: <cgaidsgroup@...>