Four billing scams at civic hospitals in 3 years, PCMC yet to fix system flaws

Pune: The Pimpri Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) continues to rely on staffers on contract and offline billing systems at its civic hospitals despite recording at least four major financial irregularities at billing counters over the past three years.While the municipal corporation has repeatedly promised to digitise its operations, the progress has been sluggish. This delay has allowed gaps in the offline system to be exploited by staff members to manipulate records and siphon off public funds.In the latest incident reported last month, four staff members, including three contractual employees and one permanent billing clerk, at Prabhakar Malharrao Kute Hospital in Akurdi allegedly siphoned off Rs9.25 lakh by tampering with patient bills. The discovery triggered a detailed audit across all nine civic hospitals, revealing a similar pattern at New Bhosari Hospital, where two employees were suspected of misappropriating nearly Rs10 lakh.Investigations revealed that the accused manipulated records by charging patients the full amount but underreporting the collection in official submissions. For example, while a patient would be issued an original bill for Rs100, the staff would alter the carbon copies submitted to the civic body to reflect only Rs25, pocketing the Rs75 difference.Dr Laxman Gophane, chief medical health officer of PCMC, confirmed that action is underway. "We have written to the police seeking an FIR against four individuals in one case. A second FIR against two more individuals in a separate incident will be proposed soon," he said. Dr Gophane added that the role of senior officials is also under scrutiny to fix accountability. However, the police are yet to officially register an FIR in either matter.This is not an isolated trend. In Dec 2023, an FIR was registered against a contractual clerk at Yashwantrao Chavan Memorial (YCM) Hospital for siphoning off Rs68,260 using similar tactics. In early 2024, a permanent PCMC employee at Jijamata Hospital in Pimpri was found to have misappropriated nearly Rs10 lakh by depositing only a fraction of the collected cash into the municipal account.A senior official from the health department cited a shortage of permanent manpower as the reason for the reliance on third-party agencies. "Clerical work requires a large volume of staff to work round-the-clock, and PCMC currently lacks that internal strength," he explained.Officials maintain that a fully online billing system with real-time tracking is the only long-term solution. Currently, most of PCMC's nine hospitals operate offline. YCM Hospital, the city's largest facility, has moved almost all its billing counters online over the last three months."We are in the process of making online billing mandatory across all hospitals within the next 45 days," Dr Gophane said.Sayali Kiran Nadhe, president of the Congress city unit's women's wing, who previously exposed the irregularities at Jijamata Hospital, argued that handwritten bills remain the root cause of the fraud."Shifting to a fully online system would significantly reduce the scope for manipulation," Nadhe said. She further demanded that these cases be handled by the police rather than through internal civic probes to ensure impartiality."In previous instances, the civic body allowed those involved to continue working after they returned the misappropriated amount. This cycle must stop. Those involved must be suspended and face strict legal action to deter others," she added.
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