Punjab health directorate spent most of its budget buying lab items,funds for medicines lapse

A large part of the DHS’s budget is meant to buy medicines for patients visiting these PHCs,but last year (2011-2012) not a single penny was spent on buying medicines.

According to the demand received from the PHCs across the state in 2011-2012,medicines worth Rs 20 crore were required. However,the directorate used up Rs 5.4 crore (out of about Rs 8 crore) to buy abnormally large quantities of laboratory items and hospital equipment. An amount of Rs 2 crore,left for buying medicines,lapsed.

When asked,Dr J P Singh,Director (health services) said: “Medicines could not be bought because by the time we got down to tendering,the model code of conduct had come into force in December,2011 and we could not move ahead. The other items were purchased as these were to be done through the rate contract process.”

While the directorate seems to have waited for the fiscal year to end before starting the tendering process for medicines,the demand for the laboratory items was met on priority.

Out of the budget of Rs 6 crore meant to buy material and supplies (this also includes medicines),Rs 1.3 crore was spent on buying different types of filter papers. Nearly Rs 35 lakh was spent on buying microscopic slides and another Rs 76 lakh on chemicals. To purchase glassware,Rs 56 lakh was spent. The filter papers and the chemicals were bought from a single vendor based in Chandigarh.

While in all,around Rs 4 crore was spent under this category,Rs 2 crore — left over for medicines — was allowed to lapse.

Out of the almost Rs 2-crore budget for machinery and equipment,the DHS bought Rs 1 crore worth of “single channel pipettes with dry seal technology”,again from the same Chandigarh-based vendor. While around Rs 50,000 remained unused,the rest of the money was used to purchase an instrument sterlizer,an autoclav machine,a photostat machine,some microscopes and electrical needle and syringe destroyers.

According to the DHS office,the items were bought because these were required in PHCs and the district civil surgeons had demanded these along with medicines. The demand of medicines was to be met through a tendering process while the rest of the items were to be bought through the vendors,which had been awarded the rate contract for these items. While the tendering process for medicines got delayed,the rate contract vendors were available to be given the orders.

The directorate also seems to have not taken the process of rationalisation of demand of the rate contract items seriously. For instance,the demand of filter papers varied between extremes across the districts.

While Sangrur district with only 20 PHCs demanded 2,000 packs of filter paper,Jalandhar with 41 PHCs,Amritsar (35),Ferozepur (32),Nawashahar,Tarn Taran and Muktsar did not ask for even a single pack. Ludhiana with 34 PHCs demanded only 62 packs of filter paper,while Bathinda (12) sought 1,400 packs and Patiala (28) asked for 790 packs. The Punjab government’s chemical analysis laboratory in Kharar demanded the highest — 2,500 packets of filter paper while the food analysis laboratory in Chandigarh’s Sector 11 asked for 900 packs.

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