Balangir: Nearly two years after Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi announced plans to establish the state’s second All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Sambalpur, an RTI query has brought to the fore the communication between the Chief Minister and the Centre casting a shadow over the project’s fate.
Right to Information (RTI) activist Hemant Kumar Panda of Balangir sought details from the Odisha Health and Family Welfare department regarding the proposal and its progress.
The department provided the information September 25, including copies of correspondence between the Chief Minister and Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda. In a letter dated August 27, 2024, Majhi had urged Nadda to establish Odisha’s second AIIMS in Sambalpur. He cited the state’s population of about 4.6 crore and the pressure on AIIMS Bhubaneswar, which also caters to patients from neighbouring West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh.
Nadda, in his reply dated October 23, 2024, said Odisha already had an AIIMS at Bhubaneswar under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana, besides a satellite centre at Baleshwar. He also pointed to approved super-speciality blocks at medical colleges in Brahmapur, Kataka and Burla.
Reiterating that the healthcare infrastructure is being improved in states and Union territories under the National Health Mission (NHM), Nadda said the Centre would provide assistance if the state government submitted a proposal for strengthening health infrastructure under the mission.
He further stated that if the Odisha government included the proposed Sambalpur AIIMS project in its Programme Implementation Plan (PIP) and made the required fi nancial provisions, the Centre could provide assistance in accordance with NHM guidelines.
