SHILLONG, March 25: Health and Family Welfare Minister, Alexander Laloo Hek has defended the delay in the commissioning of the Cancer Treatment Centre (CTC) at Shillong Civil Hospital.
“The work at the CTC building was completed two years ago. We wanted to speed up the process of procurement of equipment but this could not happen as the state government is still using the building for the treatment of COVID-19 patients,” Hek told reporters.
“We have to wait till the situation normalizes,” he said.
In its report, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) had stated that due to serious negligence by the implementing authority, the work at the CTC could not be completed despite allocation of Rs 26.16 crore by the Central government.
The CAG had also stated that the scrutiny of records of the State Cancer Society showed that the cancer hospital at Shillong was far from being completed as of January 2020. “The total expenditure incurred was only Rs 9.77 crore (utilisation certificates for the amount furnished to the Central government) out of Rs 19.84 crore received by the state,” the CAG had stated.
The report highlighted that due to non-completion of the main cancer hospital building, the required equipment was also not purchased and the hospital was non-functional till February 2020, despite availability of funds.
It had further observed that the inordinate delay in the completion of the hospital “reflects serious negligence on the part of the implementing authority (state cancer authority) for which the state government needs to fix responsibility and take appropriate action against those responsible for the delay”.