THANE, Oct. 27 -- 'Aapla Dawakhana', an ambitious project implemented by the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) to provide free healthcare services to the urban poor in Thane, has been shut down since August. The staff members, including nurses, housekeeping, etc., have not received their salaries for the past six months. A delegation of aapla dawakhana staff met Thane MLA Sanjay Kelkar on Friday to share their grievances and sought his intervention. Many of these 40 clinics branded as "Vandaniya Balasaheb Thackeray Aapla Dawakhana" have now been converted into commercial shops, forcing the poor to seek costlier healthcare services from private hospitals. Kelkar blamed the contractor. "The TMC had awarded the contract to operate 40 aapla dawakhana clinics to a Bengaluru-based firm, MedOnGo. However, the company shut down the facilities in August without paying staff salaries or rents to property owners. The staff have been left unemployed. The TMC had imposed a penalty of Rs.56 lakh on the firm, which remains unpaid," he alleged. Kelkar added, "The TMC must recover this penalty from the defaulting company, ensure the staff receive their dues, and blacklist the contractor. If the TMC fails to take action, the staff will hold a protest march against the corporation." Dr Prasad Patil, TMC health officer, told HT that the corporation has recovered the penalty from the defaulting contractor. "However, the staff who have not been unpaid were employed by the contractor, so it is the their responsibility to clear their salaries. According to the agreement, the contractor was required to operate aapla dawakhana clinics until October 31, but they shut them down in August. We have a meeting with the TMC Commissioner on Monday to decide further action against the contractor." Dr Patil further added that although aapla dawakhana services are currently closed, the TMC has decided to set up 68 Urban Health and Wellness Centres under the Central Government's National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) scheme. Presently, 45 such clinics are operational across Thane, and 20 more are expected to open within the next 20 days....