The Committee on Petitions of Delhi Assembly on Monday claimed “huge shortage” of staff at the Asha Kiran shelter home in East Delhi’s Rohini where 14 inmates died last month while alleging that a corrupt officer was appointed as the administrator of the shelter home under Lieutenant Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena without consulting the Delhi government. The committee, chaired by AAP MLA Kuldeep Kumar, also held a meeting with the officers of the Asha Kiran shelter home in the assembly. Alleging that the officer was corrupt, Kumar said, “An officer previously suspended for five years after his arrest by the CBI had been appointed as the shelter home’s administrator on the direction of Lieutenant Governor V K Saxena.”
“The LG office has been issuing false statement over the appointment of administrator of the shelter home. The administrator was appointed on October 4, 2022 by the LG without any involvement of the minister in charge of the social welfare department,” Kumar claimed.
Kumar said that after visiting the shelter home on Saturday, the Petition Committee of the Delhi Assembly also held a meeting with the officials of the shelter home in the Delhi Assembly on Monday. “In the meeting, information was sought from the officials about the reasons for this incident in the shelter home,” he said.
Kumar said there is a “huge shortage” of staff at the shelter home, saying the committee will write a letter to the LG seeking his explanation on the vacancies and the reason why no officer was punished for negligence leading to the deaths of 14 inmates of the facility in July.
“As many as 33 auxiliary nurse midwife and two other staff have not been paid salaries for six months and their contracts have also not been renewed,” he added.
The committee will hold more meetings with the shelter home’s officers and submit its report to the Speaker of the Assembly, he said. Asha Kiran is a Delhi government-run facility for “mentally challenged” and comes under its Social Welfare Department.