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HOW A DOCTOR
DISCOVERED FRAUD
Anand Rai, the Indore-based smelt a rat. Some PMT papers, he he says, has cost him a great deal. In
doctor who blew the lid off learnt, were about to be leaked. It was August 2010, he says, he was fired
the Vyapam scam, first like a rerun of the exam he had taken from the government-owned
sensed something was amiss in 1993. He says that he immediately Maharaja Yeshwantrao Hospital in
in 1993. He had come to tipped off the Indore crime branch. A Indore for "instigating" a strike of
Indore as an aspiring doctor from his case was registered. Later, he filed doctors. "Instead of taking action
village, Mahendragaon, in the Harda complaints in similar cases, alleging against the president of the
district of Madhya Pradesh to appear that impersonators were coming from association, they sacked me even
for the pre-medical test, or PMT. The other states and appearing in PMT on though I was only a patron of the
entrance test was being conducted by behalf of candidates. association," he says. Later, he joined
Vyavsayik Pariksha Mandal, or as medical officer in the Regional
Vyapam, the professional examination He, along with Paras Saklecha, then Health and Family Welfare Training
board of Madhya Pradesh. the MLA from Ratlam, raised the issue, Centre in Indore.
and in December 2009 Chief Minister
Rai was delighted with the zoology Shivraj Singh Chouhan set up a Rai, whose wife is also a doctor, says
paper in which he had excelled. But his committee to look into the matter. In besides his own safety, he fears for his
joy was short lived. News broke out its report in November 2011, the family. He also says that he does not
that the paper had leaked in Gwalior. committee said that 114 candidates rule out the possibility of poisoning in
Distressed but determined to seek had cleared PMT with the help of the deaths of Narendra Singh Tomar,
justice, he and some fellow candidates impersonators-doctors or talented an accused in the scam, and journalist
protested and the exam was held senior students. Like his seniors in the Akshay Singh. More than 30 deaths
afresh. hostel, these candidates too belonged have been allegedly linked to the
to affluent families. scandal. On Thursday, the Supreme
In 2005, while pursuing a post- Court transferred the investigation into
graduation course in medical science, By 2012, Rai and Saklecha compiled the the scam to the Central Bureau of
he says he discovered that some of the names of the impersonators through Investigation.
students, who had figured among the the Right to Information Act or by
top ten in the entrance exam, hardly seeking replies in the state assembly. The Vyapam scam is not the only
had any knowledge of the subject. All Almost all impersonators reportedly issue Rai has raised. He has also drawn
of them came from affluent families revealed that they worked on behalf of attention to the alleged irregularities
and lived in a common block of the Jagdish Sagar, the doctor who is the in drug trials in Indore. According to
college hostel, he says. He did not raise alleged mastermind of the scam. reports, since 2005, Rai has filed
the matter then because, he says, he more than 1,000 RTI applications,
was their junior. Rai, who is an ophthalmologist, has including those concerning the mess in
accused the state government of trying drug trials. His fight is far from over.
Four years later, in 2009, he again to silence the whistleblowers. His fight, (Source : BS)
Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.
PR COMMUNICATION AGE August 2015 19
