Following reports published in some media outlets about an alleged scam in procurement of sanitiser spray by the Municipal Corporation of Dehradun (MCD), the chief municipal health officer has decided to take legal action against them

Recently, reports in two newspapers and a news portal alleged that the corporation bought one percentage sodium hypochlorite disinfectant last year in March at the rate of about Rs 60 per litre while the market price is only around Rs 12 per litre. Responding to such allegations, the municipal commissioner, Vinay Shankar Pandey said that the

MCD is among the first municipal corporation in the country that started spraying one percentage sodium hypochlorite disinfectant in a city since the implementation of the lockdown last year. Initially, the prices of the disinfectant were not set by the Central Government and there was also a shortage of the disinfectant at that time, stressed Pandey. According to him, he took guidance from the then finance minister who stated that sanitising the city was included in emergency services in the Covid-19 pandemic and the corporation must prioritise that. Pandey said that the MCD bought the disinfectant at the rate of about Rs 60 per litre in March for a few days and after that, the corporation received 26,000 litres of one percentage sodium hypochlorite from a Kota based company under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) which cost around Rs 13 per litre after MCD paid for the transport expenses. Further, the chief municipal health officer, Dr Kailash Joshi said that some media outlets have represented these facts in a distorted way which has damaged the reputation of the corporation. He said that various urban local bodies (ULBs) including Nagar Palika of Tanakpur, Uttarkashi, Kotdwar, Mussoorie and Herbertpur besides some Nagar Panchayats in Uttarakhand also paid the exceeded price for the one percentage sodium hypochlorite disinfectant during the same time period. Are all these bodies involved in the scam too? asked Joshi. He stated that the corporation has asked the news outlets to retract the statements and apologise or else, MCD would take legal action against them.

Moreover, Joshi said that he has also written to the senior superintendent of police (SSP) to file First Information Report (FIR) against the news portal which has shared a clip of an interview on Facebook stating the purchase of disinfectant as a scam by MCD.