Santosh Gangwar lays foundation stone of 100 bedded ESIC hospital in J&K

Minister of State (I/C) for Labour and Employment Santosh Kumar Gangwar on Monday laid the foundation stone of 100 bedded Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Hospital at Ompura, Budgam.

Lieutenant Governor of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha was the chief guest at foundation stone laying ceremony.

According to the Ministry of Labour and Employment, the four-storied, 100 bedded hospital will be built over an area of five acres and will provide services covering 23 specialities and three super specialities. The facility will come up at an expenditure of Rs 160 crores and is expected to be completed in the next one and a half years. Besides covering registered Insured Persons (IPs), the healthcare facilities will also be available to the general population.

Speaking on the occasion, Gangwar said that ESIC has been working for the past 66 years and has a presence in over 80 per cent of the districts of the country. He said that Srinagar has around 20,000 IPs and they deserve the best healthcare as is available to their counterparts in other regions of the country.

No citizen should be bereft of the benefits of social security coverage, he said, highlighting the strategic role played by ESIC hospitals in fighting the current COVID-19 crisis.

Sinha asserted this is a "historic day" when we talk of the healthcare scenario of the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.

He thanked Prime Minister Modi and Gangwar for their efforts and expressed hope that the population of Jammu and Kashmir will benefit immensely from the facilities that will be made available at this hospital.

Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE), Apurva Chandra said: "The ESIC has over 3 crore direct beneficiaries and when the number of their dependents is also taken into consideration, the total touches around 13.5 crore individuals which is almost 10 per cent of the total population of India."

Appreciating the efforts of Labour Department, Jammu and Kashmir, Chandra said that these efforts will bear fruit when residents of Kashmir will get access to best healthcare facilities with the coming up of this hospital.

"Best quality healthcare facilities will be provided to ESIC beneficiaries of primarily Srinagar, Budgam, Pulwama, Shopian, Anantnag and Kulgam districts of Kashmir division through this hospital," the Ministry said in a statement.