From Our Special Correspondent
GUWAHATI: Assam Cancer Care Foundation (ACCF), a joint venture of Tata Trusts and the Assam government, has assigned the work order for construction/upgrade of seven cancer hospitals to Larsen and Toubro Ltd, a Mumbai-headquartered multi-national construction firm.
Announcing this at a media conference on Saturday, state health minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma informed that during the first phase, the cancer hospitals would be constructed in Dibrugarh, Tezpur, Lakhimpur, Barpeta, Jorhat and Darrang districts while another facility would be upgraded in Guwahati.
“The work valued at Rs 736 crore in the first phase has been formally assigned on July 5 to Larsen and Toubro Ltd, which was the lowest bidder during the tendering process,” Sarma said.
The minister further informed that construction/upgrade of the seven hospitals would begin in August, 2019.
“Besides, we plan to give the order of three more hospitals (in Dhubri, Diphu and one district of Barak Valley) in the next three months. The same process for the remaining six hospitals will be initiated once the land issues are resolved by the district administration,” he said.
The facilities are expect to benefit pateints from the neighbouring Northeastern states, including Meghalaya, where the incidence of cancer cases is very high.
It may be mentioned that ACCF was set up in December 2017 to create a first-of-its-kind three-level cancer grid across Assam.
The distributed care model was conceptualised by the Tata Trusts and Assam government to create patient-centric cancer institutions to deliver standardised and affordable care closer to patients’ homes.