Health Dept demands complaint against ex-Civil Surgeon for funds misuse

The office of the Director, Health and Family Welfare, Punjab, in a letter to the Civil Surgeon, Tarn Taran, has issued instructions to register a criminal case against the then Civil Surgeon Dr Kamalpal for embezzling grants worth Rs 32 lakh issued by the state government under the ‘Mukh Mantri Motia Mukat Abhiyan’.

In the letter, the director of the department said that Dr Kamalpal forged signatures of the district committee of the programme to misappropriate the grants. Dr Navneet Singh Minhas, District Nodal Officer of the National Programme for Prevention of Blindness Control (NPPB), lodged a complaint with the State Nodal Officer of the programme in this regard. The department formed a three-member committee to investigate the complaint which detected lapses in the form of forged signature of the committee members.

The present Civil Surgeon Dr Gurpreet Singh Rai confirmed that the letter to get the case registered against Dr Kamalpal has been received by his office. Dr Rai said the services of Harash Kumar, Accounts Officer, have already been placed under suspension in this regard.

Dr Rai said that the matter was also being investigated by the Vigilance Bureau (VB). There are reports that Dr Kamalpal forged signatures of the members of the district committee to send the amount to the company from which the material was purchased for the NPPB scheme. Under the programme, the department organises eye camps and seminars to make people aware about the safety of their eyesight.