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Newborn deaths in Balaghat due to power failure: CBI inquiry demanded

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Special Correspondent

NewsBits.in

Bhopal: Saying that gross negligence of MP Urja Vikas Nigam and state health department led to recent deaths of three newborn babies in Balaghat district hospitals as the solar power plants proposed for the hospital could not be installed, RTI activist Ajay Dubey has demanded CBI inquiry into the deaths.

Addressing a press conference on Thursday, Dubey said that the central government has sanctioned over Rs 25.5 crores in year 2011 to the MPUVN for installation of solar power plants at 129 health institutions of MP becunder a World Bank aided project.

However, even five years later the work remains incomplete at 51 places including Balaghat, for which about Rs Rs 70 lakh was received.

“The failure to install the solar plants, that might have acted as backup during power cut and saved the newborn babies, is example of gross criminal negligence that warrants CBI inquiry,” Dubey said while talking to NewsBits.in.

He claimed that according to information available with him, 199 newborn babies and 15 mothers had succumbed at the hospital during past nine months.

Right to information (RTI) documents obtained by Dubey shows that the managing director of MPUVN Manu Shrivastava accepted that 20 solar power plants could not be installed due to unavailability of building while work on 31 others remained incomplete.

The MD (in a reply to query by the then principal secretary to CM, Iqbal Singh Bains) assured that the work would be completed by December this year.

The MD also accepted that the state health department had sought to cancel the project due to delay, but had been promised early completion.

Shrivastava however sought to dissociate any life risk at health centres due to failure of installation of solar plants saying that the project only aimed at environment protection and reduction of power bills at health centres.

“It is shocking that the official should take such a stand because one of the main objectives of the World Bank was to ensure life safety of patients,” Dubey said.