In a sheer waste of public money, a pathological equipment meant for the Rajouri Graden clinic run by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation is lying unused. Procured nearly six years ago by the erstwhile unified MCD at the approximate cost of `40 lakh, the machine is gathering dust at the clinic for want of an operator. What is more surprising, the civic body has not even started the process to recruit the operator. The auto blood analyser, that cost the corporation around ` 40 lakh, is lying packed in the corporation clinic and has almost turned into scrap.
Even its warranty period has expired long back.
The matter came to the notice on inspection of the clinic by local councillor and leader of House in SDMC Subhash Arya.
The machine was procured by the health department of MCD in order to upgrade the polyclinic into a Diabetes Centre. However, the project failed to see the light of the day and the machine remained dumped and could not be used even once. The matter was also raised in meeting of the Standing Committee on Tuedsay wherein Arya demanded action against the concerned officials. Health department officials, however, failed to give a satisfactory reply why the machine was procured when there was no operator for it. They said all the six lab technicians who were hired by the MCD were transferred to Hindu Rao hospital. Municipal Commissioner Manish Gupta, said he was not a party to such decision and action would be taken against those responsible.