Rajasthan: Health department begins probe into NHM recruitments of 5 years

JAIPUR: After health minister Raghu Sharma stopped recruitment process of community health officers (CHOs) under National Health Mission (NHM) suspecting corruption, health department has started investigating the recruitments made in the past five years. Files of recruitment of contractual employees have been sought for investigation from the human resource unit of NHM. The report will be presented to the minister soon. Additional chief secretary, health, Rohit Kumar Singh is spearheading the investigation.

During the process, entire human resource team of NHM has been transferred and some of them have also been suspended. “There are consultants who were appointed on contractual basis. Also, majority of the posts under NHM have been filed on contractual basis. The investigation will find out if the rules and norms of the Centre for appointment of contractual employees under NHM were twisted or flouted in the state,” said a senior health department official.

The contractual employees under NHM are not only posted in Jaipur but in all other districts of the state. These contractual employees are posted for implementation of programmes such as child health, maternal health, immunization and family planning.

At the time when all is not well in health department, state government transferred NHM mission director (state) Dr Samit Sharma to labour department. He will be replaced by Hemant Gera, who was take the additional charge while holding the post of principal secretary, medical education.

The rift between health minister Raghu Sharma and NHM mission director Samit Sharma had surfaced recently when the health minister alleged that CHOs recruitment process was initiated without informing him. However, mission director claimed that the process of recruitment started when model code of conduct for Lok Sabha elections was in force and NHM had permission from the Centre, which had sought Election Commission of India’s permission.

For the past one week, work at health department has suffered badly while the state government is contemplating to implement its ambitious ‘Right to Health Act’ in the state.