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Badal govt strikes lease deal for
prestigious health project,
lands in soup
WSN Network
JALANDHAR: In a
rather strange deal which makes no economic sense, the Punjab
Government has struck a Rs 131 crore lease deal with a consortium of
St Joseph’s Healthcare System, USA, and the NRI Academy of Sciences
for the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences’ (PIMS) despite the
latter's demonstrable capacity to generate Rs 350 crore on its own.
The Punjab
Government has accepted the Rs 131 crore lease bid and the detailed
project and the financial bid is to be placed before the PIMS
governing council headed by the CM for approval. But questions are
being raised by experts about Punjab Government shirking away from
its social responsibility by privatising the PIMS.
The PIMS was
originally conceived as a project to help provide healthcare to
large Dalit population of Doaba. The PIMS currently has a bank
balance of Rs 90 crore, while more than Rs 260 crore is yet to be
deposited by Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA) authorities
with the institute in lieu of sale receipts of commercial and
residential plots carved out of land earlier transferred by the
former under the Optimum Utilisation of Vacant Government Land (OUVGL)
scheme.
It is not known
why the state government is inviting private partners to invest when
PIMS coffers are full of money?
Real-estate
experts say since 3 acres of PIMS land had been recently sold to the
Reliance Group for Rs 106 crore, the decision to hand over the
institute spread over 60.77 acre to a private player for Rs 131
crore needed to be looked into.
They say the
PIMS can earn an additional Rs 130 crore if a vacant chunk of land
in its complex is commercially exploited.
According to the
agreement, PUDA was supposed to deposit sale receipts with the PIMS,
but the CM’s office had instructed the former not to deposit any
money with the upcoming institute without elaborating any reasons.
The PIMS has
been awaiting completion for the past several years even as Rs
115.26 crore have been spent on its building in the Rs 241.16-crore
first phase.
PUDA had taken
over possession of 119.72 acre from the PIMS under the OUVGL scheme
in 1994, wherein the former developed the land and was continuously
selling it as commercial and residential properties through
auctions.
However, work on
the project was stopped midway more than four years ago, citing
shortage of funds.
The previous
Congress regime failed to decide whether the institute would be made
operational using government funds or through public-private
partnership (PPP) mode.
Badal, during
his previous stint as Chief Minister, had laid the foundation stone
of the PIMS and assured that the people of the state in general and
Jalandhar in particular would get low-cost medical facilities of
international standards after the completion of the project.
The governing
council, at its meeting on
February 22,
2006, had decided that the Central government should be approached
for running the institute on the pattern of the All India Institute
of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
Though the then
CM Capt Amarinder Singh had also shot off a communiqué to the
Central government on
March 10, 2006,
the latter did not show interest in the proposal.
Subsequently,
the Congress government decided to run the institute through the PPP
mode and the Punjab Infrastructure and Development Board (PIDB)
invited expression of interest from leading national and
multinational companies in December 2006.
24 December
2008
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