Hyderabad: Senior Telangana Congress member Uttam Kumar Reddy took a dig at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) over the delay in the construction of AIIMS hospital in Bibinagar.
Reddy expressed dismay over the reply given by Union minister of health Dr Mansukh Mandviya to a question regarding AIIMS Bibinagar raised by him in the Lok Sabha on Friday. The Congress MP said that the statistics provided by the Union minister clearly show that there has been no progress in the establishment of AIIMS Bibinagar in the last four years.
“The proposed hospital was among 22 new AIIMS across India that had been sanctioned under Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY). While 6 AIIMS at Oddisha, Odisha, Rajasthan, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand are fully functional,” The MP said.
“Remaining 16 AIIMS including AIIMS Bibinagar are at various stages of operationalization. However, he said that the Centre neither released allocated funds nor filled sanctioned vacancies to complete the AIIMS Bibinagar.” he stressed.
“AIIMS Bibinagar was approved by the Union Cabinet on December 17 2018 and an amount of Rs. 1,028 was sanctioned for the project. Out of the total amount, so far, only Rs. 31.71 has been released. Further, the deadline for the completion of the project, which was set as September 2022 in 2019 was first extended to January 2025 in June 2022 and now the Centre is silent on the deadline,” Reddy said.
The Congress leader further said that various questions about the establishment of the AIIMS across the country, including the Bibinagar AIIMS, were raised in the Parliament 10 times between November 29 2019 till today. He said that the replies given by the Centre regarding AIIMS Bibinagar indicate that it is not interested in completing the project hence it was deliberately delaying it.
In a reply to the question raised on November 29, 2019, the Centre set September 2022 as the deadline for completion of AIIMS Bibinagar. Four months later, on February 12 2021, the Union minister informed the Parliament of Rs. 1,028 crore sanctioned amount, an amount of Rs. 22.78 crore was spent on the project and the deadline for completion remained at September 2022.
Eight months later, on December 3 2021, the Centre informed the Lok Sabha that the deadline for completion of AIIMS Bibinagar has been extended to November 2023. It also mentioned that an amount of Rs. 28.16 crores was spent on the project. This means that less than Rs 6 crores were spent in a period of 8 months from February to December 2021.
A similar reply was given when the question was raised in the Parliament on February 4 2022 and the target date of completion was mentioned as November 2023. Four months later on June 21 2022, the Centre extended the deadline for completion to January 2025.
It also stated that Rs 29.28 crores were spent on the project. The Centre admitted that it had spent just Rs.1 crore in one-and-half years (December 2021 to June 2022) and also extended the deadline by 14 months.
“When I raised the same question today on AIIMS Bibinagar, the Union Minister did not mention anything about the deadline although he claimed that so far Rs. 31.71 crore have been spent. The statistics clearly show that the BJP Govt has spent only Rs. 8.93 crores in the last two years while extending the deadline by three years. This is a huge injustice with Telangana and the Congress party will not tolerate it,” Reddy said.
The Congress MP further alleged that the BJP government did not take measures to fill the sanctioned strength. Quoting the statistics given by the Union health minister in the Parliament, he said of 183 Faculty posts, 94 were vacant. Similarly, as many as 784 non-faculty posts out of sanctioned 971 are vacant.
The Congress MP said that the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act mandated the establishment of one AIIMS each in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. “The BJP government had released Rs. 1,288.99 crores out of the allocated Rs. 1,618 crores for the establishment of AIIMS at Mangalagiri in Andhra Pradesh,” he alleged.
“However, it spent only Rs. 31.71 crores for AIIMS in Telangana. The Centre had released more than 50% of the allocated amount for 14 out of 16 AIIMS across the country. This is pure discrimination against Telangana and step-motherly treatment by Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led BJP Govt,” he alleged.
“TRS government was equally responsible for the unprecedented delay in the completion of AIIMS Bibinagar. Why did chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao remain silent on this discrimination by the Modi government all these years? TRS acted as an ally of the BJP for almost seven years and now it is enacting the drama of being a rival,” Reddy remarked.
“KCR supported the Modi government in all the major decisions like demonetisation, GST and the passing of all controversial laws. But he had no courage to question Modi Govt on the injustices done to Telangana. KCR’s silence deprived the poor people of Telangana of gaining access to super-speciality health services,” he said.
The Congress MP appealed to the people to take note of injustices being done by the BJP government to Telangana and to understand its nexus with the BRS which remained a mute spectator to those injustices. Reddy announced that the Congress party would soon launch an agitation demanding the early completion of AIIMS Bibinagar.
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