The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday conducted search operations at the premises of IAS officer Sanjeev Jaiswal, two close aides of Shiv Sena UBT leaders in connection with a money laundering case related to the alleged Covid field-hospital scam.
The ED searched the homes of Suraj Chavan, a close aide of Shiv Sena UBT leader Aaditya Thackeray and Sujit Patkar who is a close friend of MP Sanjay Raut.
In January, the ED recorded the statement of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal in connection with alleged irregularities in award of contracts for health facilities during the pandemic and asked him to clarify the field hospital contract allotment process.
Chahal led the civic body’s response to the pandemic in Mumbai, where special health facilities were set up to treat coronavirus patients as the cases mounted.
The civic chief told reporters the situation could have gone out of hand if swift preparations were not made to tackle Covid-19in the metropolis, which recorded its first case in March 2020.
The civic body had started jumbo Covid-19 centres with orders from the state government by acquiring some places and handing them over for setting up field hospitals, he said.
“The BMC outsourced the required staff to meet the requirement of Covid-19 field hospitals. As a result, the lives of lakhs of people were saved as they were provided timely medical treatment,” Chahal said.
After getting information about some of the facility providers submitting forged documents for bagging contracts, the civic body had written a letter to the police to verify details, he said.
Earlier, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kirit Somaiya had claimed irregularities in setting up Covid-19 centres by the BMC.
The former Lok Sabha MP had also registered a complaint at the Azad Maidan police station in south Mumbai, based on which an FIR (first information report) was lodged against a hospital management firm and some persons for allegedly submitting forged documents to win contracts for Covid-19 health care centres.