Early Times Report
Jammu, Jan 12: In a bid to defend illegal appointment of a doctor under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) by him, the Director Health Jammu is forcing his subordinates to cover up the misdeed by becoming a party to the blunder.
Despite refusal of the concerned drawing and disbursing officer, the Director Health is insisting for release of the salary/honorarium of the backdoor appointee, who is serving as Contractual ISM Doctor under NRHM at Primary Health Center Bhour Camp, Block Sohanjana for the last more than eight months.
This female doctor was appointed by Director Health B S Pathania vide order number DHS/J/Adm/4124-27, dated 4/3/2014, subject to the approval of District Health Society, Jammu, which is the only competent authority for making such appointments.
However, the said order was neither endorsed by the District Health Society (headed by the Deputy Commissioner) nor brought into the notice of concerned officer for the apparent reason to keep this backdoor appointment out of knowledge of the competent authority.
The matter came into light after this doctor started attending her duties and then asked for her salary/honorarium. Since the appointment order was not endorsed by the District Health Society, the Block Medical Officer Sohanjana expressed his inability to release the pay and sought clarification from the Chief Medical Officer Jammu, vide letter number BMO/Soh/NRHM/RKS/89-91, dated 10-07-2014. As the concerned officer is not in a position to accommodate the beneficiary because of non-endorsement of the appointment order, the Director Health, on the other hand, has been unofficially pressing the subordinates to release salary of this female doctor. The issue has become talk of the Directorate with all eyes set on fate of the backdoor appointee vis-à-vis pressure tactics by the Director. According to the sources, pressure tactics by the Director have reached the level of harassment to his subordinates who have appealed the Governor N N Vohra to look into the matter and order a probe into all the illegal practices in the Directorate, besides this appointment. |
