Fake gazette notification: Dept confirms Officer's involvement

Bhubaneswar: The Factories and Boilers department has confirmed that Assistant Director Motilal Gouda is the main culprit in issuing the fake gazette notification asking companies to get health check-up of their employees through select pathology labs and receiving over Rs 1 crore as kickback.

Director of the department PC Das informed that Gouda published the notification on his own and sent it out to industrial units asking them to get the health checkups of their employees done by a group of empanelled pathology test centres.

Moreover, in this regard, Gouda also signed a Rs 63-lakh agreement with Navaratna PSU Nalco and was planning to sign another agreement for Rs 1.06 crore with the company, Das informed stating further that the Crime Branch is currently investigating the matter.

According to allegations, the Odisha government had issued a notification on September 23, 2015 making it mandatory for industrial units to conduct regular health check-ups of their employees. However, the said notification didn’t mention any empanelled pathology laboratories where the health check-ups should be conducted.

But on October 16, the Assistant director of Factories and Boilers (Medical) Motilal Gouda issued another notification empanelling five pathology labs where the industrial units should conduct the health check-ups of their employees. Out of these five labs, two each are in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack while another one is in Talcher.