By IANS
New Delhi : Two years after Prime Minister Manmohan Singh gave a go ahead to setting up six institutes on the lines of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), a detailed project report for them was yet to be prepared, parliament was informed Wednesday.
“The detailed project report (DPR) would be ready by May-June 2008. Thereafter tenders would be invited for selection of contractor for civil construction work,” Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss informed the Lok Sabha.
He said the layouts for the sites at Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Raipur and Rishikesh were approved. “Approval of layout for Patna site is expected this month.”
The project envisages providing affordable and reliable healthcare services across the country.
The proposal to set up six super-speciality hospitals like AIIMS at a cost of Rs.20 billion was mooted in 2003. It was approved by the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs March 16, 2005.
The minister said even after the project got an approval, the project consultants could not be employed, as the initial bid process remained “unresponsive”.
Later, the offer of “short-listed architectural design consultants for preparing enlarged concept design was rejected due to exorbitantly high price quoted by the selected designers”.
“Therefore, the whole process had to be initiated de novo in December 2006,” the minister explained.
Ramadoss said each proposed institute would be taken up as a separate and independent project instead of clubbing all six together.
“The construction of housing complex was also separated from that of hospital and medical college.”
He, however, said that the work on residential complexes is likely to be completed by 2009 and on the hospital-medical college complexes by 2010.