By IANS
New Delhi : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member Kiren Rijiju Tuesday sought Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intervention to streamline the functioning of a super-speciality hospital in Shillong.
Raising the issue during the zero hour in the Lok Sabha, Rijiju said a move was afoot to “sell off” the North-Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIEHM) to a Chennai-based firm called M.S. Frontier in the name of public-private partnership.
“Prime Minister Manmohan Singh must intervene in the matter. The hospital needs only technical staff and some other facilities to be effectively functional,” Rijiju said, adding the government was not serious to streamline the functioning the hospital.
“It was upgraded on the par with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) during the time of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). Now there is a move to hand it over to private parties,” Rijiju said.
The hospital, the first of its kind in the region, has over 500 beds and offers tertiary care in several fields including heart surgery. It was upgraded with over Rs.4.22 billion.