Rs 112 crore for hospital buildings

Bhopal, Apr 06: State Government has made budgetary allocation to the tune of Rs 112 crore for the current financial year for construction of hospital buildings and development of infrastructure there. During the financial year 2007-08, this amount was only Rs 92 crore. This information was given by the Minister for Public Health and Family Welfare, Ajay Vishnoi.

Vishnoi said that four years ago, only Rs 24.40 crore was sanctioned for construction of government hospitals' buildings while the present state government increased allocation under this head by four and a half fold. During the current financial year the state government has made a budgetary provision for improvement of hospitals in urban areas also. During the year 2008-09, construction of hospital buildings would be completed at seven places. In the financial year 2007-08, construction works to the tune of Rs 14.89 crore were approved for the buildings of six urban institutions. He said that the state government has sent an action plan for improvement of development block-level health institutions for the year 2008-09 to the Union government for its approval.

According to Vishnoi, administrative sanction was given last year for improvement of TB Hospitals at Indore, Ujjain, Sagar and Naugaon at a cost of Rs eight crore. Rs 1.60 lakh amount has been sanctioned for preliminary preparations of these construction works. Giving information about improvement and construction of rural hospital, the minister said that construction of buildings of 42 community health centres was completed during 2007-08. He said that construction of 34 community health centres is going on at a cost of Rs 21.89 crore. Sanction for these centres was given in 2007-08. The state government has set a target of completing construction of 39 out of 91 community health centres during the year 2008-09.

The Health Minister said that as many as 370 buildings of primary health centres were under construction during 2007-08 out of which 80 buildings have been completed. In the same year, three primary health centres were sanctioned at a cost of Rs 61.20 lakh. This year, construction of 113 out of 293 buildings of primary health centres would be completed. During the year 2007-08, construction of 95 buildings of sub-health centres was completed. This year, a target has been set to complete the construction of buildings of 261 out of 731 sub-health centres. The construction of the 500 sub-health centres under National Rural Health Mission would also continue during the year 2008-09, he said.