AIIMS Rae Bareli: Sonia’s pet project gathers dust

With Prime Minister Narendra Modi  and the Gandhis locked in a bitter war of attrition, the Congress chief’s pet project is proving to be a non-starter. The reason being the Centre’s refusal to increase its budget from the previous outlay of Rs 500 crore.

Both the Centre and Uttar Pradesh government also have shifted their focus to setting up AIIMS at Gorakhpur, the constituency of BJP’s firebrand MP Yogi Adityanath. 

Surprisingly, six years after its approval by the then United Progressive Alliance government, the Centre has justified the fund cut saying that the people of RaeBareli have access to the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI)- a super specialty hospital situated in Lucknow, incurring a huge expenditure on AIIMS-Raebareli was therefore not justified.

Union Health Ministry officials claimed that the 79- km distance between Lucknow to Rae Bareli can be covered in about one and a half hours, which is not too inconvenient for patients. 

“We have to look at a broader perspective as AIIMS-like institutions are catering to the need of a larger number of patients. It was for this reason that a full-fledged AIIMS in Haryana has not been sanctioned,” a senior official said.

Notably, the ousted-UPA government had approved setting up of AIIMS in RaeBareli in June 2009 at an outlay of Rs 500 crore. 

According to Health Ministry sources, of the allocated fund, about Rs 105 crore has been spent on building houses for faculty and staff. 

The AIIMS-Rae Bareli has been clearly told to complete the work of hospital and college premises with the leftover fund, which is about Rs 395 crore only.

This would entail a cut in facilities, such as reduction in number of beds for patients, which will come down to 500 from 960. Installation of equipment would be less in comparison to other newly built premier institutions. 

The official further added that construction work was scheduled to start in 2016, and by 2017 its structure was supposed to be ready, but under these changed circumstances, it may not take off. 

The Centre has urged the Akhilesh Yadav government for ‘cooperation’ in this regard, but there has been no headway. 

“We are bound to provide land for the institution and to develop infrastructural facilities, which have been already done. Now, it’s the responsibility of Centre to ensure it’s fruition. If they are falling short of budget, they have to deal with it,” a top level official in UP government said.