UP health scam: CBI arrests former Family Welfare minister Babu Singh Kushwaha

Lucknow:  The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested Babu Singh Kushwaha, former Family Welfare Minister of Uttar Pradesh, in connection with the multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam. Mr Kushwaha is a prime accused in the scam and had been named in one of the FIRs filed by the CBI.

Mr Kushwaha, the most high-profile arrest in the case so far, was arrested immediately after the final phase of polling ended in Uttar Pradesh. Mr Kushwaha, a former Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) minister, had joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) just before the UP polls. Along with Mr Kushwaha, his close aide RP Jaiswal, a BSP MLA from Deoria, was also arrested, taking the number of people arrested in the case to eight.

Sources say Mr Kushwaha and Mr Jaiswal were produced before a Special CBI court in Ghaziabad this evening which sent them to CBI remand for 10 days.

In 2005, the UPA government launched the National Rural Health Mission Scheme. Huge amounts of money were to be sent to states to provide accessible and affordable health care to the poorest families in remote regions. The government's auditor has said that more than half of 8500 crores sent by the Centre to UP (from 2005 to 2011) have been embezzled.

The large scale bungling in the centrally funded programme involved not only heavy over-invoicing, but even fake supply of medicines and hospital equipment by fictitious firms as well as huge kickbacks in construction activity undertaken with a view to improving the available health services in government-run primary health centres in rural areas.

The scam saw corrupt bureaucrats and politicians siphoning away crores meant to improve health facilities. It was birthed in the Family Welfare department in Mayawati's government, which handled the huge funds sent by the Centre for the NRHM Scheme. Mr Kushwaha was sacked by Mayawati in April last year after the murders of three chief medical officers forced the government to acknowledge the deep-rooted graft in his department.

Two senior doctors affiliated to the department were murdered; another was found dead in a Lucknow jail in mysterious circumstances. In January, an officer with the UP Jal Nigam committed suicide allegedly because he was being investigated for his role in the scam.    
The Allahabad High Court has ordered the CBI to investigate the trio of deaths and the swindle entrenched in the department.  Chief Minister Mayawati has, however, described the investigation into the swindle, and its findings, as a political conspiracy against her.

For NDTV Updates, follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook

View the original article here