Anti-Corruption Branch’s preliminary inquiry of the Delhi government has revealed that 65,000 ghost patients underwent pathological tests at the Mohalla clinics through private labs during 11 months of 2023, officials said on Saturday (February 3). Two private labs conducted nearly 22 lakh tests during February-December, 2023, out of which 65000 were found to be fake, they said. The Delhi government had paid Rs 4.63 crore to the labs for the tests conducted by them, they added.
This comes after Delhi Lt Governor VK Saxena, last month, recommended a CBI probe into the reports of irregularities in lab tests conducted at the Arvind Kejriwal government’s Mohalla clinics. The Ministry of Home Affairs had directed the CBI to take up investigation in the matter.
What did the ACB say?
According to an ACB official, the private labs allegedly conducted tests on ghost patients who never paid any visit to the Mohalla clinics.
"It also emerged that the Lab Management Information System (LIMS), containing the name and mobile number of the patients, was also developed, operated and conveniently manipulated by the two private labs," he said.
The report has found that the two private vendors have “full control and access" over the data and system software and hence, the possibility of manipulation of data could not be ruled out, officials said.
Various tests at the Mohalla clinics are carried out, the cost of which vary from Rs 100 to Rs 300.
How did ACB figure out the irregularities?
The ACB also did random tele-verification of mobile numbers of patients at both private labs which revealed that a large number of tests were conducted on either invalid mobile numbers or mobile numbers were not related to the patients, they said.
Analysis of one of the private laboratory's patient data showed listing of 12,457 tests with blank mobile numbers, 25,732 tests with 'zero' mobile numbers, 913 tests with fake mobile numbers like 1, 2, 3 etc; and 2467 tests with mobile numbers repeated more than 80 times for different patients, showed the report.
(With PTI inputs)
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