Chandigarh, November 19
The Haryana government has decided to chargesheet Avinash Sharma, director general (health services), Haryana; Khem Chand Bhardwaj, superintendent (nursing); and dealing assistant Shashi Gupta for “irregularities” in a matter pertaining to approval given to nursing institutes in the state.
Sources said nursing institutes, ANM institutes that run 18-month course and GNM institutes that run three-year courses lacked basic infrastructure and trained faculty for running these courses.
Concerned about the lack of quality, Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda had asked the department to redraft a policy for granting permission to open such institutes.
Following this policy, all cases that were awaiting approval were rejected by the department on grounds of not “fitting the bill”. However, they were asked to fulfil the conditions as per the new policy. The applicants moved court and on the directions of the court, the DGHS was asked to form a three-member committee to check the ground reality of the institutes.
However, instead of doing so, the directorate issued a letter to the institutes that they fulfil all the conditions as per the new policy and only then a no objection certificate (NOC) would be issued to them. Later, the directorate sent another letter saying the case of the petitioners would be considered for approval from next year, landing the government in a piquant situation especially since no “reality check” had been carried out.
While the court asked the Health Department to issue NOCs within a stipulated time to these institutions since they fulfil the conditions as desired by the government, Anuradha Gupta, principal secretary (health), summoned the original records of the case.
She then sent a detailed report of the existing “collusion” between the directorate staff and institutes. Based on the report, the government has decided to chargesheet Sharma according to Rule 7 of the Service Rules.
