Bengal to set up six more ESI hospitals

KOLKATA: The state Labour department is coming up with six new ESI hospitals in the state in a major boost to providing healthcare facilities across the state. The department has also initiated the process of setting up 43 health centres across the state with the focus on North Bengal.

“There are 14 ESI hospitals in the state presently. We are setting up another six hospitals. Two of them have already come up in Haldia and Siliguri with 100-bed capacity each. Two hospitals primarily dedicated to the ‘bidi’ labourers situated at Jhalda in Purulia and Tarapur in Murshidabad have been proposed to be taken over by ESI. It has been proposed to develop two more hospitals at Shyamnagar in North 24-Parganas and Kharagpur in West Midnapore,” Moloy Ghatak, state Labour minister said.The department has already augmented the capacity of two ESI hospitals – Sealdah with 100 beds and Asansol with 50 beds.

Among the 42 health centres, 34 will be based in North Bengal primarily to cater to the huge number of tea garden workers and their families. “The North Bengal Development Board has already floated tender for 34 health units,” Ghatak said. In reply to a query in the state Assembly on Monday, Ghatak said that during the period from 2000 to 2011, the number of labourers registered with the department stands at 9 lakh with the total amount disbursed for their benefit being Rs 9 crore. However, since then, 1.52 crore have registered and the total amount disbursed is over Rs 2100 crore.