New Delhi: The Public Accounts Committee has observed some discrepancies in the construction of an emergency care building and in the utilisation of medical equipments procured for the purpose at the Central government-run Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital.

The ministry of health and family welfare, on behalf of RML Hospital, had entered into a contract with a private company for construction of the building in May 2010. The work was scheduled to be completed by October 2010 and the intention was to open the emergency medical facility for sports persons attending the Commonwealth Games. The construction was, however, delayed by five years.

Owing to the delay, the warranty period of seven types of equipments worth Rs 1.22 crore, which were procured for the unit, had expired without being used and equipments worth Rs 2.40 crore kept lying uninstalled in the store till December 2015.

The audit report said despite being aware that the construction work will be delayed, the procurement cell of the ministry issued ‘notification of award’ in December 2011 to 24 firms for supply of various medical equipments for the emergency care centre. The equipments, costing Rs 15.93 crore, were received between April 2012 and December 2012.

“The failure to ensure readiness of infrastructure to install the equipments led to non-utilisation of two equipments for a period of more than 36 months. Even when the equipments were utilised, these were diverted and were not utilised for the intended objectives of emergency care. The patients were deprived of better care facilities soug-ht through these equipments,” said the report.

It added that there was no coordination between the infrastructure work and the equipment purchase.

The delay of 1,576 days took place owing to various reasons such as cha-nge in structure designs, delay in submission and finalisation of designs by the contractor, etc.

In its reply, the ministry however stated that the hospital issued purchase orders in 2012 with a view to get the equipments well in time before the commissioning of the building.

“This was done with the proposition to have the equipments available in the hospital when the centre would be ready and also to implement post contract action,” it said.