CM to launch new Sankara Nethralaya centre today

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will inaugurate Kamalnayan Bajaj Sankara Nethralaya at New Town on Monday, the centre which promises to provide free of cost treatment for the poor and the needy.

Sankara Nethralaya, the pioneering institution across the nation has set up two eye hospitals in Kolkata. The organisation set up an eye hospital in 2007 at Raja Subodh Mallick Square.

In 2009, another state-of-the-art hospital was set up at Mukundapur. The hospital at Mukundapur was later named Aditya Birla Sankara Nethralaya.

As the hospital at Mukundapur has reached its threshold level, the organisation decided to build another hospital at New Town – now one of the most sophisticated townships in India.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had laid the foundation stone of Sankara Nethralaya's New Town project in January 9, 2012. This new set up has been named Kamalnayan Bajaj Sankara Nethralaya, in honour and memory of the Gandhian industrialist.

According to a Bengal government source, the state-of-the-art hospital covering an area of 67,000 square feet has an entire floor and two operation theatres.

However, this brand new centre will also serve as research institution, teaching and training centre for the local doctors in ophthalmology, optometry and paramedical sciences.

It may be mentioned that New Town has become the home of several renowned hospital.

West Bengal Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation has demarked an area in the New Town as health block.

There was an influx of patients with eye related problems who had been going to South India for treatment. Many patients also went to South Indians cities from neighbouring Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan.

However such an eye institution played a major role to accommodate those patients in Bengal.

The state government, however, wants a humane approach from the private institutions.