By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: At last the State Government has finally initiated the process of calling the tenders for shifting the patients of Reid Chest Hospital to a new location at Mawdiangdiang since the Shillong Medical College is proposed to be constructed at the site of the present TB hospital in Jhalupara.
Deputy Chief Minister and in charge health and Family Welfare Rowell Lyngdoh on Thursday said that the process of calling tenders has already started to construct the alternative hospital at Mawdiangdiang for shifting the patients of Reid Chest Hospital.
Earlier the department was in a bother to find the alternative land before the Urban Affairs finally handed over a land to the health department in Mawd-iangdiang.
“I don’t think it will take much time to call for tenders,” he said.
When asked about the progress of the proposed Shillong Medical college, Rowell Lyngdoh informed that the committee which was setup for reviewing the bidding have opened the bids on Wednesday.
“The Committee will go through the details of all the bidders first,” he said.
Taking into consideration, the speed at which the entire progress of the project, is going on, it seems that construction of the proposed Shillong Medical College would not begin from 2013 as was earlier announced by the Chief Minister. .
Chief Minister Dr Mukul Sangma had, earlier, announced that construction of the proposed Shillong Medical College would begin from 2013 and the first batch of MBBS students would be enrolled in 2017.
The State Government earlier this year approved the bidding document for construction of Shillong Medical College and Hospital under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode.
Earlier, the Health department had identified a plot of land near the Pasteur Institute for relocating the TB Hospital, but the land was later found to be too small for the purpose, prompting the department to approach the Urban Affairs department for allocation of land in the Greater Shillong Township area for relocation of the Reid Chest Hospital.
The expected project cost is Rs 248 crore and the mega project would include 500 teaching beds and 40 percent of the seats in the college would be exclusively reserved for the students of the state.