With medical services in the State has been already hit by rampant corruption, the health ministers of the Centre as well as State are at loggerheads trying to blame each other for the entire mess.
Talking to the media persons here at Congress State office, Union minister of State for Health and Family welfare Santosh Chaudhury expressed her dissatisfaction on the health services in the State. ''The health situation in UP is very critical and not even 10 per of the Primary health Centers are providing medical facilities around the clock in the state,'' she alleged while taking on poor health services in the State. She said that UP is poor in providing utilization certificates of the funds spent which has forced to Centre to stop the future sanctions.
Union Minister said that there were around 4000 Primary Health Centers in the State but out of the total only 352 were functioning around the clock. ''The officials of the state government now only blames the previous BSP government for all the mess in the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) schemes. But without getting the utilisation certificates it is very hard to release the funds,'' she claimed. State Health Minister Ahmed Hassan reacted very strongly to it and claimed that they already submitted an account of utilization of funds under NRHM for the last 19-months.
"We have given account of funds given to the State in past 19 months. How can we give account of loot of funds in previous Mayawati regime," Hassan said. "The matter of NRHM scam is being probed by CBI. We havegiven it the account... and are continuing to give the same. What is happening there (with CBI). Centre has done a deal in this (matter)," Hasan alleged while taking potshots at the Centre. Interestingly, Hassan made the above claims refusing to take responsibility of NRHM funds exhausted in Mayawati’s regime but his own Party is alleged to be giving shelter to Babu Singh Kushwaha, prime accused in the multi-crore rupees NRHM scam and even recently given Kushwaha’s wife Party ticket for next Parliament elections. On compaliant of Kushwaha’s kin government had also reportedly sought a report from the Vigilance Establishment whether other enquires pending against Babu Singh Kushwaha could be closed. Countering the recent allegation of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav who accused Congress government for secretly laying foundation of some key projects here in UP, Santosh
Chowdhury without naming anyone alleged that the word "Samajwadi" is being used on ambulances for advertising Samajwadi Party's name. "The SP is doing its advertisement by writing 'Samajwadi' word on ambulances which are funded by Centre under NRHM," she alleged. However, Ahmed Hassan was again quick to play down the charges saying that "Samajwadi likha hai Samajwadi party to nahi" (There is Samajwadi written on them (ambulances) not Samajwadi Party).
Chowdhury also said that the state government is responsible for encephalitis deaths in Eastern UP and alleged that the Centre was supporting the state but the same was not reciprocated from the state. Answering that, Hasan said that Centre is not supporting the state, as UP had demanded Rs 5,000 crore from Centre to strengthen health services but had got only Rs 1,500 crore. later, Chowdhury said that she would return to the state next month and look into the demands of the State.