After Consuming Liquor, Rodents Now ‘Hit’ Health Scheme in Bihar

Patna/New Delhi: Rats in Bihar are giving a tough time to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and the state’s officers. After “gulping” lakhs of litres of seized liquor in the prohibition-bound state and being blamed for weakening of river embankments to cause their collapse, the rodents are now “creating trouble” in the implementation of the ‘Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (PMJAY)’ in the state.

Authorities at Ara’s Sadar Hospital in Bhojpur district reportedly returned empty handed for five days in a row, hundreds of underprivileged people who had come to the district headquarters to obtain gold cards under the government funded healthcare programme because the computer systems were “damaged by rats”.

The PMJAY is a flagship health insurance scheme launched in September last year by the Central government. Under this scheme, those who have gold cards can seek treatment at any government hospital or any empanelled private hospital across the country for free. The scheme provides annual health cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family to people listed in the Socio-Economic Caste Census of 2011 for secondary and tertiary care hospitalisation.

Officials concerned in the Sadar Hospital stopped issuing gold cards to beneficiaries because the wires connecting the computers and printers at the designated office were damaged by the rats. The issuance of the card has been slow in several districts of Bihar for the past two months. As a result, there have been protests in many districts by people who come remote villages.

Bhojpur district’s in-charge Civil Surgeon Dr. Pratik has been quoted as saying, “After the rats damaged the computer systems at the hospital, work of the transaction management system (TMS) of PMJAY has also been badly hit. The process would be normalised in a day or two.”

The scheme aims to cover over 1.08 core families in Bihar. When the scheme was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar had hailed it as the “best scheme for the poor” and said that the state government would implement it with “total perseverance and transparency” in all the 38 districts.

Rats: New Scapegoat in Political Discourse?

This tiny creature – the rat – has been infiltrating the public discourse in Bihar. The Bihar Police had said in May, 2017, that rodents drunk more than 9 lakh litres of liquor which the cops had seized from people flouting prohibition laws that was implemented in the state in April that year.

The issue came up after the media reported that the seized bottles of liquor were missing from police station ‘malkhanas’ (stores).

The rats were not spared after this. Bihar Water Resources Minister Rajiv Ranjan blamed rodents in September 2017 for the state’s crumbling embankments and the consequent flooding in 21 districts that left more than 500 people dead and lakhs homeless.

It's not only Bihar that has blamed rats, Maharashtra government too had accused them of consuming 34 kg of drugs from a customs godown at Sewri. The contraband worth Rs. 3.4 crore in international market went missing from the godown in 2014.

The stolen drugs were part of a nearly 200-kg stash of the ‘party drug’ ketamine that the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had seized from Andheri in June 2011, in the Konduskar case. Abhijeet Konduskar of Konduskar Travels had been arrested in the case along with several others for illegal drug trade. The police had seized a total of 1,000 kg ketamine from Mumbai and Sangli.