The CBI today conducted raids at 40 places including New Delhi, Lucknow, Kanpur, Ghaziabad and Noida after three new cases were filed in the National Rural Health Mission, NRHM, scam.

The raids were conducted at residences and offices of former health secretary of Uttar Pradesh, Pradeep Shukla and five other members of Legislative Assembly and Legislative Council. The CBI registered three more cases last evening.

Shukla was director of the NRHM and was in-charge of distribution of money and awarding contracts to various firms to supply medicines under the mission. Some of the companies, which supplied the material, belong to the bureaucrats. They are also being raided by the CBI.

The CBI had registered five cases earlier in connection with the NRHM scam.

Former UP minister Babu Singh Kushwaha was questioned for siphoning off funds.

Between 2006 and 2011, the centre had released more than 6,680 crore rupees under the NRHM.