Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj. , Photo Credit: file photo
Three IAS officers of the Delhi government’s Health Department — two Special Secretaries and a Secretary — wrote to Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj on August 8, blaming the failures of the city’s health infrastructure in the capital on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government.
However, the Minister has hit back at the officials, stating that the letter was “misleading”.
In their note, the officials said several functionaries, including Mr. Bharadwaj, “sat on files for long periods of time” and returned them time and again without offering any concrete reasons.
The officials said there have been delays in the construction of various hospitals, leading to cost escalations.
The officials also said that the Hospital Information Management System (HIMS) had not been implemented even after eight years of its announcement.
They also wrote about the non-implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (Ayushman Bharat), pointing out that Delhi is among three States that have not implemented the scheme.
In response, Mr. Bharadwaj said, “The note has deliberately not disclosed the directions of Ministers from time to time in the issues. The Health Secretary has been asked to place all facts in the form of a table to present the complete picture. The officers of the Health Department in the meeting accepted that the information in the note is incomplete and misleading.”