`Woman in labour turned away from hospital'

Central Chronicle Bhopal, June 11

A woman in labour was turned away from a government hospital, tribal farmers were put in a debt trap by showing them as loanees for the lift irrigation pump that did not work even for a single day and electric supply was erratic in rural areas.

These were among a host of complaints found true after Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan ordered spot verification of the grievances raised by the common people during his 'Jan Darshan' programme in the tribal-dominated Jhabua district in the last two days. Chouhan ordered suspension of at least half a dozen officials, including engineers, and issuing of show cause notices to two executive engineers of Public Works and Water Resources departments, official sources said. A nurse was suspended following complaint that she did not admit a woman in labour who had turned up at the government hospital at Meghnagar for institutional delivery.
Jhabua block panchayat Chief Executive Officer S T Madhavacharya and Sub-Engineer Dinesh Lodhi were suspended for irregularities in the construction of water bodies in farmer's land at village Antarvelia. Two Sub-Engineers SN Chouhan and KK Saxena were suspended for irregularities in rural employment guarantee scheme, the sources said.

Chouhan had instructed the Indore Divisional Commissioner to scrutinise the tender system in all Works departments in the district and black-list the contractors who were found not up to the mark. ''Rural people were not satisfied with the electricity distribution system'', he said while reviewing the working of the Power Distribution Company (Discom) and suggested to improve the system to ensure that farmers got power supply on schedule.

Taking a serious note of the lift irrigation schemes, he stated that only 600 of the total 1100 LIS were functional. Many schemes did not function even for a single day and the farmers were labelled as loanees, the Chief Minister said.