The Hindu : Front Page : Nod for two more AIIMS-like institutions

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Friday, Feb 06, 2009
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Nod for two more AIIMS-like institutions

Special Correspondent

To come up in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, at a cost of Rs.823 crore each

NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved two more AIIMS-like medical institutions, one in West Bengal and the other in Uttar Pradesh, at a cost of Rs.823 crore each. The Cabinet also decided to upgrade five government medical colleges in five States to the level of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi.

Announcing this, Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram said: “The proposed institution in West Bengal will come up at Raiganj in North Dinajpur district. The site for the AIIMS-like college and hospital in UP has not yet been identified.”

Raiganj is represented in the Lok Sabha by the ailing Union Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi.

Each institution, to be set up under the second phase of the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojna (PMSSY), will have a 960-bed hospital and will provide health care facilities in 39 speciality or super-speciality disciplines.

There will be 500 beds for the medical college hospital, 300 for speciality or super-speciality, 100 for ICU or accident trauma, 30 for physical medicine and rehabilitation and 30 beds dedicated to Ayush (Ayurvedic, Unani, Siddha, Homoeopathy).

The medical college will have a hundred under-graduate intake, besides facilities for imparting post-graduate or doctoral courses and a nursing college.

The Cabinet also approved upgrading of the government medical colleges in Amritsar (Punjab), Tanda (Himachal Pradesh), Madurai (Tamil Nadu), Nagpur (Maharashtra) and Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College of Aligarh Muslim University.

The upgrading of each of these medical colleges will be done at an estimated cost of Rs.150 crore. Of this, the Centre will contribute Rs.125 crore and a minimum of Rs.25 crore will be borne by the respective State governments.

In respect of Aligarh Muslim University, Rs.25 crore will be provided by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development.

Locomotive factories

The Cabinet decided to modify an earlier decision and allowed establishment of two locomotive factories in Railway Minister Lalu Prasad’s state Bihar as joint ventures.

The green-field electric and diesel locomotive factories at Madhepura and Marhowra (in Saran district) were earlier scheduled to come up in the public-private-partnership mode.

Mr. Chidambaram said the Ministry of Railways would hold equity of 26 per cent and the international partner would bring in state-of-the art technology. The short-listed competitors include leading locomotive manufacturers Alstom of France, Bombardier and Siemens from Germany for the electric locomotive factory and GE, India, and EMD, US, for the diesel locomotive factory.

The bids, at an estimated cost of Rs.2,000 crore, are expected to be completed soon.

The Railways would procure 800 electric locomotives of 12,000 HP each and 1,000 diesel locomotives of 4,500 to 6,000 HP each from these factories over a period of ten years.

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