Atchen Naidu arrested in ESI scam !

June 12, 2020

Senior Telugu Desam Party legislator and former Andhra Pradesh minister Kinjarapu Atchen Naidu was on Friday arrested by the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) authorities in connection with the sensational Employment State Insurance scam in the state.

The ACB sleuths arrested Atchen Naidu at his residence in Visakhapatnam in the early hours of Friday. He is being taken to Vijayawada and likely to be produced in the ACB special court later in the day.

Apparently, the ACB authorities took the action only after gathering all the evidences against Atchen Naidu. The ACB sleuths had already arrested Insurance Medial Services (IMS) director Dr CK Ramesh Kumar in Tirupati who reportedly spilled the beans about the involvement of Atchen Naidu.

It may be mentioned that the Vigilance and Enforcement Department of Andhra Pradesh, in February this year, unearthed the scam in the Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) hospitals, dispensaries, and diagnostic centres.

During the investigation, it was revealed that Atchen Naidu, who served as the labour minister during the Chandrababu Naidu regime had directed Ramesh Kumar to issue work orders to a company named ‘Tele Health Services Pvt Ltd’, without inviting open tenders in 2016.

As per the department’s report, Atchen Naidu asked Ramesh Kumar to sign an MoU with the company to provide toll-free services to patients who call for assistance regarding pending reimbursements and referral bills.

Accordingly, Ramesh Kumar inked an MoU with the firm and agreed to pay Rs 1.80 per month for each IP irrespective of the calls attended. He also entered into another MoU with the same service provider to grant ECG services to patients at Rs 480 per ECG when the same was available in other hospitals at a maximum rate of Rs 200.

The probe found that the service provider claimed bills by submitting call logs of Telangana State IPs and the directors didn’t verify the call logs.

Similarly, it was found that the company utilised the services of PG diploma clinical cardiologists instead of qualified DM cardiologists, violating the agreement. In this entire affair, Ramesh Kumar and another director Dr G Vijaya Kumar paid Rs 4.15 crore for the toll-free services and Rs 3.81 crore for ECG services.