CBI arrests UP ex-health secy

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Uttar Pradesh chief minister Akhilesh Yadav signs a board during a school function in Lucknow on Thursday. — PTI

The CBI on Thursday arrested UP’s former principal health secretary, Pradeep Shukla, for his alleged role in multi-crore National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam. The agency, sources said, is set to register three more FIRs related to irregularities in opening of telemedicine centres (worth `9 crore), distribution of medical kits (`22 crore) and contracts related to printing material (`8 crore) under the NRHM programme very soon.
Mr Shukla, a 1981 batch IAS officer, was arrested from the Lucknow airport when he was about to take a flight to Delhi. Later he was brought to Delhi by the agency officials and produced before a designated court in Ghaziabad. The court sent him to seven days CBI custody for further interrogation. He is the first IAS officer to be arrested in the NRHM scam. He was the mission director of NRHM during the period when the scam took place. Mr Shukla has been interrogated several times by the CBI in Delhi and Lucknow.
The CBI had questioned him regarding contracts worth `1170 crore, allotted for construction of hospitals in Uttar Pradesh without openly inviting tenders. Mr Pradeep Shukla has been named as an accused in four of the 13 FIRs that have been registered by the CBI in connection with the NRHM scam.
His arrest comes three days after former CMO Dr A.K. Shukla was arrested in Lucknow. Interestingly, the CBI took the former CMO A.K. Shukla on remand for 48 hours and is expected to confront him with information regarding the murders of the three medical officials.
“Pradeep Shukla was brought to the CBI headquarters in Delhi from the Ghaziabad court. The agency officials confronted him with certain documents, recovered during recent searches”, sources said. During investigation carried out so far in 13 FIRs, several bank accounts, reportedly belonging to the accused, have been frozen, with `9.5 crore lying in the accounts. Besides, $1,500, 5.4kg gold, 114gm silver and properties worth `37.43 crores, belonging to accused persons, have also been unearthed by the agency sleuths, sources added.
Sources further said, “There are allegations that former Family Welfare minister of UP, Babu Singh Kushwaha — arrested by the CBI — allegedly invested several crores (approximately `300 crore to `400 crore) in mines in Malaysia. This is also being probed by the CBI as well as officials of the Enforcement Directorate.”
Sources said that more arrests were likely — both in the NRHM scam and the murders of three medical officers — next week when the noose begins to tighten around some political leaders whose role in the scam and the subsequent murders is suspect.