ESIC medical college in city to cost Rs 500 cr

The Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), under the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment, has received approval from the central government to set up a 500-bed medical college and hospital in Bhubaneswar at an estimated cost of Rs 500 crore.

ESIC, which works for health insurance and other benefits of labour and working community, plans to build this medical college at Jagannathprasad area in the capital city. The state government had earlier provided 25 acre land in the area for this purpose.

Last week, the state labour and ESI department received the project approval letter from ESIC, sources said.

A decision regarding establishment of an advanced healthcare facility at Bhubaneswar was pending since 2008, when the state government had requested the ESIC Director General to upgrade the existing ESI hospitals in Bhubaneswar, Choudwar and Rourkela to medical and dental colleges.

The ESIC DG had then asked the state government to provide land, preferably near the existing ESI Hospital at Bhubaneswar to upgrade the facility.

However, former chief minister and Congress MP from Sundargarh, Hemanand Biswal demanded that the site of the medical college be shifted to Rourkela as the place has large number of insured persons under ESIC. This had put the corporation in a fix as the Union government had asked ESIC to set up only one medical college in every state.

On the request of the state government to set up two ESIC medical colleges, one at Bhubaneswar and the other at Rourkela, the Centre had sent a high level committee to select the site for one medical college as per its decision. The committee, during its visit to both the cities in 2012, had favoured Bhubaneswar as the location for the medical college.

Meanwhile, the Regional Director of the ESIC has approached the Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) to renew the building plan for the medical college so as to go ahead with construction.