Recurrent road accidents along the National Highway, and other link roads, taking a heavy toll of life, have become a regular phenomenon in our hilly State. On the occurrence of each road accident, the Traffic Department, the Government and the civil society all become vociferous; accusations and counter accusations are traded, enquiries installed and the outcome is left to fizzle out with the passage of time. It is a zero- sum game. After every road accident, the departments comes out with some new and novel idea of how it thinks accidents can be prevented, and the Government, in a bid to throw dust into the eyes of the public, hails the novelty generating a widespread belief that with the induction of the so-called new scheme or system, occurrence of road accidents will be minimized and people will travel with less apprehension of being destroyed before they reach their destination.
Critical Care Ambulance is one among the fantastic novelties somebody’s ingenuity tumbled upon. It is nearly a year and a half that in pursuance of the project twenty-five ambulance vehicles were purchased for the Health Department and the process of tendering was initiated with the purpose of fabrication and conversion of these vehicles as Critical Care Ambulances. The idea was that in an exigency, the ambulance would rush to the spot of accident, pick up critically wounded passengers, administer them urgent medical support available in the fabricated vehicle and bring the wounded to the hospital. In this way, effort would be made to save precious lives. But unfortunately, this good decision has become a victim of officials skullduggery. A row appeared on the issue of rate contract for conversion with the contracting company after the tender was accepted. As the controversy snowballed, the Government took recourse to ultimate methodology of constituting a committee with the terms of reference to go into the entire matter and submit a report. The committee is reported to have done its job and recommended that the contract be quashed and fresh tender called. This process took nearly a year and half, and re-tendering process also would take as much time in all probability. It means three full years from the day the idea was approved. Still its fruition is uncertain. In the meanwhile, accidents will continue to take place and innocent people will continue to get killed. All this indicates that our polity attaches more importance to paper work and officialdom than to saving human lives. That is what has happened with the case of twenty-five ambulance vehicles under discussion.
The crux of the matter is this: The Government invited tenders from parties for fabrication and conversion of ambulance vehicles. The tenders were advertised and the order was placed with a Himachal-based firm in 2012 after approval of the rate. However, the rate contract and the order in favour of this firm were kept in abeyance by the Government for some reasons. This was challenged by the firm in the court, which quashed the abeyance order. Now the Government has cancelled the contract and fresh tenders will be invited. The question is why did not the concerned authorities go into all aspects of the contract before it was finally approved and accepted with this particular Himachal firm? Who are the elements that secured the contract for this particular firm and who are the elements that managed and succeeded to scuttle it? This exercise cannot happen without the active connivance of departmental and administrative circles. Has the enquiry committee gone into these aspects of the issue or left it under wraps?
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