JHAJJAR: In neighborhoods where health workers never arrived, official records tell a different story—one of completed vaccinations, fulfilled targets, and public money spent. In a district of Haryana, those contradictions have triggered an inquiry that now threatens to expose deeper fissures in India’s public health machinery.
A Paper Trail That Didn’t Match the Ground Reality
In Bahadurgarh, an industrial town on the outskirts of Delhi, government files show near-total coverage of the BCG vaccine under the national tuberculosis elimination drive. On paper, families were visited, children and vulnerable adults vaccinated, and targets achieved. On the ground, residents say they remember no such campaign.
The discrepancy surfaced after a complaint by Anup Ahlawat, who alleged that health department records falsely marked entire colonies as vaccinated. When an inquiry committee visited the affected areas in Jhajjar district, officials encountered women whose names appeared on official vaccination lists but who insisted that neither they nor any family member had received the BCG shot. Several said no survey team had ever come to their locality, let alone a vaccination drive.
The contrast between lived experience and administrative data has become the central fault line of the case—raising questions not just about one program, but about how public health success is measured and reported.
The Tuberculosis Mission Under Scrutiny
The BCG vaccinations in question fall under the National Health Mission’s tuberculosis elimination programme, a flagship initiative implemented across 22 states with the goal of making India TB-free. In high-burden areas like Bahadurgarh, the program prioritises households of TB patients and people deemed at risk.
According to the complaint, several colonies identified as high-priority never saw health workers, despite records indicating full compliance. If proven, the lapse would undermine the credibility of a program that relies heavily on local reporting to assess progress. It would also complicate the government’s broader narrative of steady gains against tuberculosis, a disease that still kills hundreds of thousands in India each year.
Officials involved in the inquiry have so far limited their comments, saying only that verification is ongoing and that records are being cross-checked with field reports.
Allegations of Black-Market Diversion
Beyond falsified records, the complaint levels a more serious charge: that BCG vaccines worth crores of rupees were diverted and sold on the black market. Such an allegation, if substantiated, would point to financial misconduct layered atop administrative failure.
Mr. Ahlawat has argued that a neutral investigation could bring senior health officials under scrutiny. He has warned that any attempt to dilute or influence the probe would prompt legal action in the High Court through a public-interest petition. For now, administrators say the inquiry remains internal, but the specter of judicial intervention looms over the process.
The health department has not publicly responded to the black-market claims, and no officials have agreed to speak on camera. Their silence has only intensified speculation around the case.
Political Attention and Administrative Silence
The complaint gained traction after being raised with Union Health Minister J. P. Nadda and Haryana Health Minister Aarti Rao, prompting the formation of the inquiry committee. Since then, district officials have visited colonies, taken statements, and begun reconciling registers with testimonies.
Administratively, the episode has drawn sharp attention from the state government, which is now monitoring the inquiry closely. Yet the absence of official briefings has left residents and health advocates reliant on fragmentary information.
