ACYA alleges corruption in health department appointments

A CORRESPONDENT

LAKHIMPUR, June 9: Anti-Corruption Youth, Assam (ACYA) came down heavily on the mysterious silence on the part of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal regarding the allegation of corruption in the State Health Department in connection with various appointments.

"Why did the Chief Minister dare not launch any enquiry into those allegations of corruption which were brought to light along with enough evidence ?" said Dharma Kanta Gogoi, the State president of the organization while addressing a press meet held at North Lakhimpur Press Club on Friday. In the press meet, the president of the organization revealed corruption which happened in the Health Department regarding appointment to 882 posts of nurse, 168 posts of ward boy, 168 posts of ward girl and 55 posts of night chowkidars.

"Regarding the appointment to these posts, though more than one lakh unemployed youths of the State applied offline, the Director of Health Department suddenly served a notice to collect applications online, terminating the previous decision. As per the notification, only 10,000 candidates were able to apply online this time. The department concerned could skilfully collect an amount of Rs. 2.20 crore from the unemployed youths by treasury challan through the offline applications. Through the process, keeping aside 90,000 unemployed candidates, only a few selected candidates from the 10,000 online applicants were appointed against those posts by collecting cash with the help of some mediators, viz, Golap Mazumder, Raju Das, Giyasuddin, Sahabuddin, and Rakibul Hussain, who were engaged by an Additional Director whose surname was Choudhury. The written test held for appointment to these posts was just a sham and the result of the test was declared within a short period of 10 days only," Gogoi alleged. He demanded Chief Minister Sarbabanda Sonowal, who talks of zero tolerance against corruption, to launch an enquiry into the alleged scam.

"In the meantime, the Health Department has declared a list of 500 fake employees, in which the names of 47 candidates are being included. But Lakhimpur Police were unable to find any such candidate during the investigation," he added. He said that he mentioned in the FIR lodged in North Lakhimpur PS about the order served during the tenure of the Tarun Gogoi government, instructing the Joint Director of Lakhimpur to initiate action against 24 fake appointees of Lakimpur DHS. This order was kept concealed in the office concerned while the then Joint Director was ordered to lodge FIR against those appointees declaring them illegal.

On the contrary, the Joint Director allowed them to remain in service, promoting a few of them to upgraded posts. In this regard, he demanded Lakhimpur Police to arrest Khagen Baruah and Siddhartha Sankar Gogoi, alleging them to be the masterminds of the fake appointment scam in Lakhimpur, within 24 hours or he threatened to lodge complaint before the State Police Accountability Commission and to initiate protest simultaneously.

He demanded of the Chief Minister and the Health Minister to prove their sincerity and honest stand of zero tolerance towards corruption by launching a CBI probe into the issue.