Speaking in the Assembly today, state’s Minister for Health and Family Welfare Surya Kanta Mishra said the West Bengal government has not heard anything from the Centre regarding the proposed institute since February 5, when the Union cabinet approved two AIIMS-like hospitals, one in the state and the other in UP, at a cost of Rs 823 crore each.
However, when contacted in Delhi, Union Minister of State for Health Dinesh Trivedi said over phone, “I have answered one question regarding this in Parliament today itself. Since the Union cabinet has cleared it, there is no impediment. The day we get the land from the state, we will start the work the very next day and finish the project in two years. And I would also want to know why had the state government not chased the project since it got the Union cabinet’s approval,” Trivedi said.
The institute is proposed to be set up in Raigunj in North Dinajpur district, the Lok Sabha constituency earlier represented by former Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi, who had successfully lobbied for the project. Raigunj is now represented by Deepa Dasmunshi, wife of the former minister who has been ailing for more than a year now.
On Wednesday, Mishra said he saw the Central government’s plans only in newspapers. “Last year, we passed an all-party resolution in the Assembly urging the Centre to set up an AIIMS-like institute in West Bengal. An all-party delegation also went and met the then Union Minister for Health A Ramadoss and submitted a proposal. And later, we saw in the newspapers that the Union cabinet had cleared it. But six months have elapsed and we have not heard anything from the Centre regarding this. In the Union budget too, nothing has been proposed,” the minister said.
Mishra also took a dig at Trivedi, who recently said the Central government would set up three AIIMS-like institutes in West Bengal. “Let him give us at least one instead of talking of three,” Mishra said.