ESIC’s medical hanging fire

Expressbuzz, May 29, 2009

ROURKELA: The proposal to set up a Rs 500-crore medical college and hospital (MCH) by the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) in the State has not made much headway as the State Government continues to dither over its location.

The State Government’s reported proposal to set up the MCH at Balangir was virtually turned down by the ESIC owing to inadequate ESIC stake-holders there. Sources said now the government has proposed the MCH in Bhubaneswar.

CITU Orissa unit general secretary Bishnu Mohanty recently met the ESIC director-general and impressed upon him to locate the MCH at Rourkela. Reiterating that Rourkela is the ideal location, Mohanty argued that since 70 per cent of the Insured Persons (IPs) of ESIC are concentrated in Sundargarh and its neighbourhood mining and industrial districts of Jharsuguda, Keonjhar and Sambalpur no other place in Orissa would best cater to the needs of the poor working class. Moreover, sources said, the MCH would also extend sophisticated health care to the general public of the areas at affordable cost.

At present, the Ispat General Hospital (IGH) at Rourkela caters to the needs of people of the industrial and mining belt apart from adjacent Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand states.