Bhubaneswar, Jan. 24: A visiting World Bank team today informed the Orissa government that a former health minister had received Rs 5-lakh from a company for “favours” in association with a bank funded health project.

At a meeting with state chief secretary Ajit Tripathy, the team said the incident occurred in 2005 when the Rs 305-crore Orissa Health System Development Project funded by the international agency was on. It, however, declined to disclose the minister’s name. “We will not comment on the details as an inquiry is on,” said John A. Roome, bank’s operations director of South Asia.

Later talking to reporters, Tripathy identified the minister. “At that point, Bijoyshree Routray held the health portfolio,” he said, adding the bank informed him he had received a “bribe” of Rs 5 lakh from a company through an “agent” in July 2005.

This, Tripathy said, was disclosed to the bank in December 2005 while it was reviewing another project on reproductive and child health.

Routray, who was dropped from the cabinet in 2006, has denied he was involved in any way. “I was in no way involved in the scam, nor was I aware of it,” he said today, while adding that he had no role in the purchase of equipment where embezzlement was alleged to have taken place as there were technical committees.

Roome said the bank’s detailed implementation report on the project had identified indicators of corruption. Soon after, the government set up an official committee headed by the chief secretary to inquire into the matter and subsequently asked the vigilance department to conduct investigations.

The World Bank had assured both the state and the Centre — it was conducting a separate probe — that any company found guilty of bribing would be debarred from future projects. However, it became difficult to identify the culprit as there were as many as six health ministers during the eight years when the project was being implemented.

Therefore, the state asked the bank to name the minister.

The bank’s review detected fraud in procurements for and implementation of the project’s civil works. When the team visited 55 project hospitals, it found 93 per cent of them were incomplete.

Four hospitals were locked up. Yet the construction management consultants who supervised the work had certified 38 of the hospitals as complete according to project specifications.

The team also identified 17 equipment that violated project specifications including five that were hazardous.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik said: “Appropriate action would be taken against the guilty after the completion of the vigilance inquiry into the health scam.”