The vendors supplying medicines and other items to the Doon hospital have threatened to stop supplies in wake of pending payments. The hospital now owes Rs4.5 crore to these vendors and the companies supplying the general medicines have expressed their inability to supply medicines to the hospital.
The hospital now owes about Rs1.5 crore each to the drug suppliers who provide general medicines and drugs of local Purchase (lP). Similarly, the vendor who supplies cooked food to the in-house patients needs to paid a pending amount of Rs30 lakh.
The electricity bill of the hospital has mounted to Rs17 lakh and it owes Rs60 lakh for the suppliers of reagents, and Rs50 lakh for surgical equipments. The pending bill of petrol pump owner supplying fuel has mounted to Rs12 lakh.
However, the cause of relief is that despite constant threatening none of the vendors have actually stopped the services yet. The Principal Medical Superintendent (PMS) of Doon hospital Dr RS Aswal said the hospital receives the Budget on quarterly basis and all payments would be made as soon as the Budget for last quarter is received.
He played down the threat of the vendors and said that there is no such possibility. The annual Budget of the hospital is Rs11.324 crore and the hospital administration used to receive this Budget at the beginning of the financial year. This year, however, the finance department decided to provide the budget on quarterly basis triggering the problem.
The hospitals now have to submit the utilisation certificate (UC) of the amount released to them and then the department releases next installment. It is learnt that many hospitals do not send this UC in time due to which Budget of all the hospitals got stuck.