2000 crore BMC Covid Center scam, ED raids continue

The Enforcement Directorate on Wednesday conducted searches at 15 locations in the city and adjoining areas as part of its money laundering probe into alleged irregularities in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in awarding contracts for two major Covid-19 centres. in 2020.

The company under the scanner is Lifeline Hospital Management Services, which won a bid of ₹38 crore to set up two facilities in Dahisar and Worli.

Among those whose premises were raided were businessman Sujit Patkar, family friend of Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Sanjay Raut, Suraj Chavan, party secretary and close associate of Aaditya Thackeray, Sanjeev Jaiswal, then Additional Municipal Commissioner, BMC, Ramakant Biradar, Member of Municipal commissioner and civil health officer, agency sources said.

The searches were conducted at houses and offices in Bandra East, Santacruz, Worli and Chembur, sources said, adding that 14 locations were in the city.

The ED case is based on an FIR registered by the Azad Maidan police in August 2022 against Lifeline Hospital Management Services partners. Patkar is one of her partners, sources said.

According to the FIR, which was based on a complaint filed by BJP leader Kirit Somaiya, the company submitted forged documents to the BMC and had no experience in providing manpower at the health facility.

Somaiya claimed that after a journalist died of Covid-19 at a jumbo center run by the firm in 2020 in Pune, the Pune Municipal Corporation and the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) jointly ordered an investigation.

The PMRDA even seized the security deposit of ₹25,000 deposited by the firm, the complaint said, adding that an investigation revealed that the company had no experience in providing medical services and had adequate staff. After that, the PMRDA issued a direction blacklisting Lifeline, Somaiya added.

However, the BMC awarded a contract worth ₹38 crore to the same company, of which ₹32 crore was paid, the FIR said. The BJP leader further alleged that the firm was unregistered and the partnership agreement submitted by the BMC was dubious.

The agency recorded a statement by Municipal Commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal on January 16. Chahal alleged that the BMC had no mechanism at that time to verify the documents submitted by various firms bidding for contracts to provide manpower at the jumbo centers or even for any other tender, ED officials said.