ED raids home of AAP’s Bharadwaj in hospital construction case

In June, the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) had registered a case against Bharadwaj and former Health Minister Satyendar Jain in relation to allegations of cost escalations and corruption in the construction of hospitals.

In a statement on Tuesday, the ED said, “The Directorate of Enforcement (ED) is conducting search operations under Section 17 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) at 13 different locations across the Delhi-NCR. These searches are in connection with the… Delhi Hospital Construction Scam… against former Health Ministers of GNCT of Delhi, along with private contractors and unknown government officials.”

It added, “The operations are based on material collected during the course of investigation and allegations contained in the FIR regarding largescale corruption, unjustified cost escalations, unauthorised constructions, and misappropriation of funds in health infrastructure projects… The search teams have covered the residential premises of Saurabh Bharadwaj, as well as the offices and residences of the private contractors involved in the projects, in order to trace evidence relating to diversion and laundering of public funds.”

ACB officials said the construction and upgradation of 24 hospitals – 11 greenfield and 13 brownfield projects – was sanctioned at a cost of Rs 5,590 crore in 2018-19 by Jain, then Health Minister.

The ACB said that not a single project was completed within the prescribed timeline, and substantial deviations and cost escalations, amounting to several hundred crores of rupees, were observed.

It also said that a Rs 1,125-crore ICU hospital project, comprising seven pre-engineered facilities with 6,800 beds, remained only 50% complete after nearly three years and an expenditure of Rs 800 crore, despite an initial completion deadline of six months.

The complaint in the case was filed by Delhi Assembly Speaker Vijender Gupta, last year, who at the time was an MLA from Rohini.

In a statement issued earlier, ACB had made specific allegations.

# Seven ICU hospitals experienced cost escalations exceeding 100%, with construction still incomplete even after the February 2022 deadline.

# New Block at Lok Nayak Hospital saw project costs escalate from Rs 488 crore to Rs 1,135 crore over four years, with the structure still incomplete.

# 52 of 94 planned clinics were constructed with cost increasing from Rs 168 crore to Rs 220 crore.

This is the second ACB FIR that Jain has been named in. On April 30, another FIR was lodged against former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia and Jain over the alleged corruption in the construction of classrooms in Delhi government schools at highly inflated costs.