HYDERABAD: The recent case against an assistant medical officer of health (AMOH), caught in a birth certificate racket, hasn’t come as a surprise to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). Reason: The AMOH — main accused in the scam — is among the 200 officials from the civic body, found indulging in irregularities.
In fact, the state vigilance and enforcement (V&E) department recently submitted a report on these officials to the commissioner, accusing them of corruption.
GHMC officials were also aware that AMOH Aizaz Khasim, who works in the Khairatabad zone, has been absconding since more than a week after learning that a case has been registered against him by SR Nagar police.
“The vigilance wing report shows that he along with 10 other AMOHs were involved in several cases of corruption — sweeper recruitment, contractor commissions, issuance of birth and death certificates etc,” said a senior GHMC official.
He added: “Since AMOHs come on deputation to GHMC from the health department, we have already initiated action and surrendered Khasim back to his parent department (medical and health) on Friday.”
There are audio recordings of the AMOHs, demanding money from complainants, that has been submitted as proof, the official said.
Apart from medical officers, the list of 200 staff also include those from town planning, urban community development (UCD) and engineering wings and officials from across the 30 GHMC circle offices.
The irregularities were occurring over the last four years.
Sources from the V&E department said that inquiries were conducted against a total of 382 officials across GHMC zones and so far, irregularities have been confirmed against 200 of them.
They said that the report was submitted two weeks ago. In the town planning department, the vigilance department observed that there were more complaints pertaining to bribery for issuing building permits across Kukatpally, Khairatabad and Serilingampalli zones.
Taking cognisance of the report, GHMC commissioner DS Lokesh Kumar had ordered internal inquiries against the listed officials and sought a report from GHMC’s vigilance and enforcement wing.
“We have acted against officials in the past after conducting our own internal inquiries. So far, more than 15 health officials in the last two years have been transferred back to their parent department and we have submitted our inquiry report for further action,” a senior GHMC official told TOI.
