Atchennaidu Arrested In ESI Scam, Babu Calls It Kidnap

K Atchannaidu, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) MLA from Tekkali, who served as the labour minister in the TDP government and is considered to be very close to party chief N Chandrababu Naidu, was on arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) for his alleged involvement the procurement of medicines for ESI hospitals when he was a minister in the N Chandrababu Naidu Government.

After coming to power in 2019, Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy had ordered an investigation into the dealings and contracts awarded by the previous TDP regime during which the ACB probed alleged irregularities in the procurement of medicines for ESI hospitals.

This morning, Atchannaidu was arrested after ACB sleuths visited his house in Tekkali in Srikakulam district with a team of more than 100 cops. He was taken to Vijayawada and will be produced in court later today.

According to the ACB, in the past five years, three persons who worked as directors of Insurance Medical Services — Dr. B Ravi Kumar, Dr C K Ramesh Kumar and Dr G Vijaya Kumar — had issued purchase orders for the procurement of drugs, medical equipment, surgical items, lab kits and furniture worth Rs 975.79 crore by violating procedures and guidelines issued by the Andhra Pradesh government.

The trio had made the purchase without constituting a Drug Procurement Committee and without calling for open tenders, causing a huge loss to the state exchequer.

The inquiry also found that while the total budget allocation for the purchase of drugs and medicines during their tenure as directors was Rs 293.51 crores, the directors had purchased the drugs and medicines from Rate Contract and Non-Rate Contract firms worth Rs 698.36 crore.

As per the MoU, the service provider has to provide toll free services to patients whenever they call for assistance of pending reimbursement and referral bills.

The director agreed to pay Rs 1.80 per month for each IP irrespective of calls attended. The director also entered into an MoU with the same service provider to provide ECG services to the patients @ Rs.480/- per ECG.

During the enquiry, it was found that the service provider had claimed the bill by submitting the call logs of Telangana State IPs and the directors had paid the amount without any verification. When verified later, it was found that the service provider had utilised the services of PG Diploma Clinical Cardiologists instead of qualified DM Cardiologists by violating agreement conditions and had claimed the bills.

The directors, Dr C K Ramesh Kumar and Dr G Vijaya Kumar, had paid Rs 4.15 crore for toll free services and Rs 3.81 crore for ECG Services.

Meanwhile, Chandrababu Naidu alleged that the Jagan government has resorted to kidnap of Atchennaidu.

“Atchennaidu has been fighting against the injustice being committed by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government against weaker sections and exposing the facts to the people. Unable to digest this, the Jagan government has resorted to kidnap of Atchennaidu misusing its power, just four days before the commencement of the state assembly session,” Naidu purported.