Punjab scraps 350-bed hospital project

Nearly 17 months after former Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi laid the foundation stone of the 350-bed ultra-modern civil hospital in Sector 66, Mohali, the Aam Aadmi Party-led Punjab government has junked the project.

On November 9, 2021, Channi had laid the foundation stone of the hospital, stating that it will provide 24-hour emergency services, besides OPDs and wards for all specialties.

Envisaged to come up on 8.72 acres at a cost of ₹40 crore, the hospital was to be christened Sahibzada Ajit Singh Civil Hospital. The project would not only provide best health-care to Mohali residents, but even to those from far-flung areas of Punjab with limited access to tertiary care facilities, Channi had said.

The plan was to shift the civil hospital in Phase 6 to Sector 66, and use the vacated premises for a medical college.

However, the AAP government, in April 2022, had even scrapped that proposal and instead decided to set up the medical college in Knowledge City, Sector 81.

Confirming the development, Mohali civil surgeon Dr Adarshpal Kaur said the new civil hospital project was cancelled at a recent cabinet meeting, as the new medical college, proposed to come up at Phase 6, was being set up at Sector 81 and the civil hospital premises can continue to be used for healthcare.

Local MLA Kulwant Singh said there was no need to shift the civil hospital to Sector 66 with mammoth expenditure since land for the medical college had been allotted in Sector 81. Instead, the government will work on upgrading the current hospital to meet the region’s requirements, he added.

‘Sector 66 is more centrally located’
Lashing out at the state government for the decision, former health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu said, “Even after one year, the state government has completely failed to streamline the medical college and civil hospital projects. The new civil hospital was proposed in Sector 66, as it is centrally located.”

The land for the project was allotted by the Greater Mohali Area Development Authority (GMADA) to the district health department in June 2021.But nearly two years later, not a single brick was laid amid the change in government.

Apart from outpatient departments (OPDs) and 24-hour emergency services, the proposed services included wards for all specialties, seven modular operation theatres, separate mother and child wing, physiotherapy services, homoeopathic and Ayurveda departments, four beds for dialysis unit, blood bank with component and platelet facility.

A dispensary offering free medicines, housing for staff and three-storey multi-level parking for visitors were also planned.

Land for medical college allotted in December
The medical college, named Dr BR Ambedkar State Institute of Medical Sciences and affiliated with Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot, was set up during the previous Congress government in the buildings of the existing Mohali civil hospital in Phase 6, Punjab Health System Corporation (PHSC) and a training institute of the health department. The first MBBS batch with 100 seats had started in May 2022. Hindustan Times