State Government should vest power with the civil surgeons and medical superintendents for making purchases worth five lakh of rupees in this Coronavirus time, said sources here.

At present the purchase power of the civil surgeon is limited to one lakh fifty thousand of rupees only.

Sources said for this the rigour of the tender has been relaxed but beyond this there is the mesh of tender, lowest quotation which is called L1,  bidding etc.

The civil surgeons across the state are facing the finance crunch.

District administration asks them orally to buy things beyond one lakh fifty thousand of rupees saying the administration will see them later.

Many civil surgeons are having nightmares about it as they know once this corona pandemic will subside those who have spent government money beyond this one lakh fifty thousand of rupees will be hounded and chased for not following strict financial rules and discipline.

A civil surgeon requesting anonymity said that they know what treatment awaits us if we go on purchasing things just on the  oral instruction of the district administration.

Civil surgeon Palamu Anil Kr Srivastav said that they are bound by the financial rules and that financial discipline is to be followed.

Srivastav refused to make any more explanation on it.

State Government has promised medicine kits for people undergoing home isolation and one such medicine kit comes for around 500 to 600 of rupees. Local buying of the medicines for such a kit is preferable but here again a bulk purchase of it requires a whole good tedious formality.

A senior officer of the state said do election offices in the assembly and parliament elections not go for massive purchasing at the shortest notices of the tender and so the same can’t be replicated with the civil surgeons in this time when hospitals are running short of smallest of the things like cotton badges needles phenyl and many more things that matter most in the maintenance of the public health.