Sanjiv Chaturvedi `unhappy` with AIIMS administration, donates Magsaysay money to PM Fund

Former AIIMS CVO Sanjiv Chaturvedi has sought a personal appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi so that he could convey his `mann ki baat`.

New Delhi: Unhappy that even over two months after he had donated his Magsaysay award money of nearly Rs 20 lakh it has not been transferred to the AIIMS account, former AIIMS CVO Sanjiv Chaturvedi has now donated the sum to the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund.

Chaturvedi, who is the deputy secretary at AIIMS, has also sought a personal appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi so that he could convey his "mann ki baat" on the plight of honest civil servants in the country.

Chaturvedi had donated the award money of USD 30,000 (Rs 19,85,187 as per exchange rate prevailing at that time) into the AIIMS account in September for treatment of poor patients under Rastriya Arogya Nidhi.

"However, till this date AIIMS administration has not deposited the said amount and the matter is being perpetually kept pending on flimsy grounds.”

"The mala fide and unwillingness is absolutely evident from the fact that in no other case of any private donor, the matter was referred to the Health Ministry and the contributions were immediately deposited into institute accounts, while in my case knowing fully well about my credentials and source of funds, the matter was deliberately referred to the Health Ministry, just to negate the contribution," Chaturvedi said in his letter to Modi.

He said meetings with the Health Secretary had also not yielded any results on the matter and that even now there is no clear cut direction from the Health Ministry for depositing the amount.

"...This was an utterly humiliating and discriminatory treatment. In view of circumstances mentioned, I have decided to donate the entire award money to the accounts of Prime Minister National Relief Fund, as I am not interested in any further tussle with Health Ministry/AIIMS on this purely humanitarian issue and so that the amount could be used for the welfare of the needy people without any further delay," he said in the letter.

"I hope that this humble contribution would be accepted and in future appropriate steps would be taken by the Central Government to bring an end to this culture of intolerance and untouchability, being practised against honest and law abiding civil servants," he said.

On September 21, Chaturvedi had written to the AIIMS director donating the entire award money after which deputy director administration of AIIMS, V Srinivas, sent the proposal to the Health Ministry for examination.

The Health Ministry then said that the money might be donated to Rastriya Arogya Nidhi, a scheme under which patients living below poverty line are provided with financial assistance, however, the officer alleges, till date they money is lying unutilised.

Chaturvedi further said, "The humiliation inflicted upon me and discriminatory treatment meted out, by way of delay/denial to deposit the award money into Institute account, was a direct result of personal annoyance of JP Nadda, Union Health Minister and President AIIMS, who had launched a persistent campaign against me right from May 2013..."

He also alleged that despite serving as the Deputy Secretary at AIIMS, the post of which was created specifically to monitor infrastructure projects to ensure their timely completion, he was never allowed to perform this assigned duty because of the massive corruption involved in the projects.

"I would be highly obliged if personal appointment could be granted to me so that I may also convey my `mann ki baat` on the plight of honest civil servants. I have been trying for this for past one year but without any result," he said in the letter to the Prime Minister.

Chaturvedi and founder of NGO Goonj Anshu Gupta were the two Indians selected for Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2015.