While the state government seems to be overtly preferring outsourcing of various services, some outside companies are alleged to have been taking the government for a ride with impunity. They are not only taking unscrupulous means to hoodwink the people in general and the government as well, but also shamelessly violating contract agreements. Many of them are indulging in blatant financial irregularities and violating labour laws.
One among them is ‘Community Action Through Motivation Programme (CAMP)- an obscure entity based in Rewa , Madhya Pradesh.
This CAMP was given the contract by the State Health & Family Welfare Society (SH&FWS) to provide certain Services and deliverables—one among them being operation of ‘102’ Ambulance Service, or in official terms, 102’ Emergency Patient Transportation Services under the NHM. (No.F.3 (5- 2749)-FWPM/ SHFWS/2013/VoI-I dated 28th February 2020). The 102 service was introduced to help transport expecting mothers, children and others as well to medical facilities. The transportations would have to be done using GPS enabled Basic Life Support fitted Ambulances and there should also be real time monitoring and website supports 24X11.
However, it was found that the company – CAMP- was blatantly violating several contractual terms that included, among many others, statutory non-compliance, and operational deficiencies for the management of 102 Emergency Ambulance Services. Some of the violations were serious criminal offences.
First, the CAMP immediately after getting the contract illegally gave sub contract to one Tripura based NGO JBL Associates in June 2020 and transferred more than 250 employees of the 102 Ambulance Service to it. This was in direct violation of Clause 3 (Service Level Agreement) that referred to explicit prohibition of selling, transferring, or entrusting to any third party any right in relation to perform the operations of the ‘102’ Emergency Patient Transportation Services.
The CAMP was also found to be violating the statutory obligations regarding Provident Fund (PF) and Employee State Insurance (ESI). This constitutes violation of the applicable Labour Laws and Contractual obligations.
It was found that neither the CAMP nor the JBL Associates deposited provident fund to all the employees. Only a few employees so far were brought under the PF scheme, but not everyone.
The CAMP and JBL Associates had also been depriving the 250 plus employees (transferred) of all facilities like Salary hike and ESIC benefits. The employees were being deceived and deprived of their ESIC benefits even after deducting the contributions from their salary from the beginning of the service. It was alleged that if anyone raised question he or she was threatened of discontinuation of the job.
When some of the employees filed RTI in the ESIC it was found that neither the CAMP nor its sub-contractor JBL Associates even registered any employee with the ESIC nor filed any contribution which had already been deducted from the employee’s salary every month.
This was a blatant criminal offence as per ESIC act.
Many employees who met with accidents and casualties while on duty were not provided any employees benefits or any assistance. As it happened when any ambulance met with any accident, the employees’ salary deduction was done and for sometimes the ambulance would remain off road.
There were many clauses in the 36 page agreement including several high tech monitoring of the services as well as its expected instant responses. But many of them were simply being ignored.
Apart from these violations, allegations were also raised against the companies that there were verbal abuses whenever anyone questioned for employee rights besides being threatened of immediate termination.
The matter, according to sources, was informed to the NHM authorities.
