The All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, which has been facing a severe paucity of funds to provide free treatment to poor patients, has refused to accept Magsaysay Award winnings donated by its f
The All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, which has been facing a severe paucity of funds to provide free treatment to poor patients, has refused to accept Magsaysay Award winnings donated by its former chief vigilance officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi.
Mr Chaturvedi had received '19.85 lakh as award money, of which '5.63 lakh was deposited as advance tax. The 2002-batch Indian Forest Service officer of Haryana cadre was recently repatriated to Uttarakhand recently. He was awarded for “his exemplary integrity, courage and tenacity in uncompromisingly exposing and painstakingly investigating corruption in public office, and his resolute crafting of programme and system improvements to ensure that government honourably serves the people.”
The anti-corruption crusader had donated the ent-ire Magsaysay prize money to the country’s premier medical institute for the treatment of poor cancer patients. Due to the unwilli-ngness of the AIIMS to acc-ept the award money, the cash will now be deposited with the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi, as advised by the Union health ministry.
A senior AIIMS official said that the institute had refused to accept the award money donated for treatme-nt of poor cancer patients amounting to '14.23 lakh and instead now it will be deposited under the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi.
On September 21, in a letter to the AIIMS director, Prof. M.C. Mishra, Mr Chaturvedi said, “I am donating the entire award money into the accounts of the institute (after depositing advance income tax of '5.63 lakh on the said award money) for providing financial assistance to the treatment of the poor patients, particularly those affected by various types of cancer.”
Mr Chaturvedi also requested that a separate register to be maintained to record complete details of the patients and financial assistance granted to them, in a transparent manner.
On September 22, AIIMS deputy director (admin) V. Srinivas had written to Ali Raza Rizvi, joint secretary in the Union health ministry, requesting him to examine the proposal made by Mr Chaturvedi under the rules and advise the institute on the further course of action.
On October 26, Mr Chaturvedi wrote to the Union health secretary, Mr B.P. Sharma, that the said amount should be donated to the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi, which is used exclusively for the treatment of poor patients, as proposed by the health secretary. “I have no objection to the said proposal if the amount donated by me into the institute account is ordered to be transferred by the ministry into the said sch-eme, in compliance with all the statutory provisions,” added Mr Chaturvedi.
Acting on Mr Chaturvedi’s no-objection to the proposal of donating the award money to the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi for poor cancer patients, on October 29, the Union health ministry directed the AIIMS director to take further necessary action for donating the award money to the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi.
