Financial irregularities worth around Rs 30 crore have been detected at the RIMS Dental College in Bariatu, but the matter is being kept hush-hush.

An inquiry report by a high-level probe committee of RIMS, which was sent to the state health secretary, says medical equipment worth Rs 3.19 crore went missing from the dental college and equipment such as dental chairs worth Rs 23 crore were bought either at a much higher cost or without requisition/requirement.

In some cases, money was paid even before the equipment was installed or its functioning checked.

A copy of the report is with The Telegraph.

However, health secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni expressed his ignorance about the probe committee report. “The report has not come in my knowledge so far,” Kulkarni said. However, health department sources off the record said the secretary’s cell received the report on July 8.

The three-page report about the financial irregularities had been sent from the office of the RIMS director on July 5 to the state health secretary.

Asked about the scam, RIMS director Dr D.K. Singh parried a reply. “I am out of station. The audit is still on. I will not comment on this right now,” Dr Singh told this reporter.

The equipment at RIMS Dental College Telegraph picture

The three-member committee headed by Dr Narendra Nath Singh, with Dr Vivek Gupta and Dr Sandeep as its members, probed the matter between March 23 and June 27 this year on the orders of RIMS director Dr D.K. Singh and submitted its report to the latter. The RMS director then informed health secretary Nitin Madan Kulkarni for a high-level inquiry into the mater after the registration of an FIR, which was prepared.

Among the various irregularities that the report states is the instance where the purchase committee on June 2, 2016, approved buying basic dental chairs worth Rs 4.25 lakh apiece but the consignment was never purchased. Again another tender was floated and the same chair was then purchased at a rate 10 times higher — Rs 14, 28, 550 per chair — in a consignment of 110 chairs. This single purchase caused a loss of Rs 11 crore. It is not clear who were behind the second company with inflated rates.

In the purchase of advanced dental chair, 15 were purchased at the rate of Rs 42, 85,650 per chair, again higher than the market rate.

This apart, though the dental facility needed 60 basic dental chairs and 10 advanced ones, 110 and 15 units, respectively, were purchased.

The probe committee also found several parts of existing medical equipment missing.

The Telegraph during a visit at the dental college on July 3, 2018, had seen costly equipment lying idle and reported it (Costly dental chair idle, RIMS kicks tax payers in the teeth, July 4).