Corruption Cloud Over Pune’s Yerawada Mental Hospital

The Regional Mental Hospital (RMH) in Pune’s Yerawada, which spans 138 acres and has a capacity of 2,540 patients, currently houses 992 patients. The investigation, covering transactions from 2015 to 2024, exposed how the hospital’s essential services were severely compromised due to mismanagement and corruption. Patients often run away from the hospital due to the lack of compound walls. The hospital’s security is questionable, as only 15 guards are employed, working in three shifts to provide security to the 85 acres on which the hospital is constructed.

Health activist Sharad Shetty wrote a letter to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Health Minister Prakash Abitkar, urging them to initiate a probe into the misuse of funds sanctioned in the years 2015 and 2016.

Shetty alleges that funds were allocated for various development projects of the hospital. However, the then-sitting official misused the funds, and the work has not yet been completed.

“For the security of the hospital, the government sanctioned Rs 1.78 crore in 2015 for a protective wall in the open space near the RMH. This wall is, however, partially completed and it has been found that patients often run away from the hospital premises due to the lack of compound walls. The government again passed a GR and sanctioned Rs 21.79 crore in the year 2016, but still, the boundary wall has not been completed. The management and the officials of the hospital working from 2015 to 2022 have completed the boundary wall of the regional hospital on paper, but in reality, it’s still incomplete. There’s a whole lot of corruption involved. The patients are getting no benefit from the government despite the money being sanctioned for the development and growth.”

Speaking to The Free Press Journal, Dr Shrinivas Kolod, Medical Superintendent, RMH, said, “The RMH has a compound wall, but the nursing quarters, staff quarters and the area near the female ward have no compound walls. The open space near the overhead water tanker has an incomplete compound wall. The female ward has no compound walls and is adjacent to the IT Park. This poses a threat as anyone can enter and can harm the patient. Every month, at least 2-3 patients abscond due to a lack of compound walls. It is true that the state sanctioned crores of rupees for the construction of compound walls in 2015 and 2016, but there are no walls. I’m looking for the files of communication between RMH and the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) to understand what causes the delay or if there’s corruption involved. I have not got the files yet. I wrote a letter on Thursday to CPWD asking them to share the files of the communication.”

Due to the mental hospital making headlines for various discrepancies in funds allocation and patient care, the state constituted a three-member inquiry committee on April 2 to inquire into the work done by the patient services and related officers of RMH, Yerwada, Pune and the work of the supervisory officers of the hospital. The team visited the hospital on April 7 to complete the investigation. They have also raised the issue of the compound walls in their investigation.

However, the activist questioned why the audit team from the Maharashtra government could not find these irregularities in their annual audit report. He asked, “If the non-completion of the compound wall was highlighted by the inquiry committee team, then why the audit team could not find this?”

Speaking to this newspaper, an official from the audit department, on the condition of anonymity, said, “The role of the audit team is to just go through the accounts and check the calculation which is provided on the paper. If we have a certain amount written on paper, we will audit what is provided to us on paper. If on the ground it’s not there, it’s the responsibility of the head of the hospital.”

Meanwhile, FPJ tried contacting Atul Chavan, Chief Engineer, CPWD, but couldn’t get any response.