Sixteen SUVs which the Union Health ministry had provided for its vector-borne disease control programme — to be used for surveillance purposes — have become a bone of contention between the ministry and Bihar government after a Central inspection team on a recent visit to the state found that only five of the vehicles had been given to the districts while the rest were being used by the Health department in Patna. When the team took up the matter with the Principal Secretary (health), they were reportedly told that it is not the Centre’s business to check specifically where its resources were being utilised as long as the use is for the purpose of public health. The heated meeting, according to some who were present in it, saw the two sides stick to their stands. Soon after, the team found that even those vehicles which had been given to the districts were being used by civil surgeons of Bihar government and not the district vector-borne disease control officer, as was originally intended, and therefore, were not being used in the fight against kala-azar. Sources in the Health ministry say that an upset Director General of Health Services met the Chief Secretary who promised to look into the matter. The DGHS’s office is in the process of writing to the Bihar government that resources earmarked for a certain purpose should be used for that alone and measures should be speedily taken to ensure that the surveillance vehicles are deployed for that and nothing else. The Central team visited the state on January 29 and 30. “The vehicles were intended to become mobile surveillance units in the 16 worst affected districts so that no time is lost in the reporting of fresh cases, to start treatment immediately as also the preventive measures to contain further spread like spraying DDT. The vans were to have mobile testing kits, some preliminary medicines, and medical staff. We did not give the vehicles for transporting civil surgeon from his hospital to residence or for ferrying Health department babus in Patna,” said a senior official. The vehicles — Tata Safaris — were given to Bihar two to three months ago for the purpose of deployment in kala-azar endemic districts such as Vaishali, Muzaffarpur, Darbhanga, East and West Champaran, Munger, Rohtas and Betiya. India carries about half the global burden of the disease and about 85 per cent of these are reported from Bihar; 33 of the 38 districts have been declared endemic for kala-azar. In 2011, 15,000 cases of kala-azar were reported from Bihar and 80 people died of the disease.