ESIC Medical College and Hospital (Bhubaneswar) design from Mukesh and Associates

The following pictures are from http://mukeshassociates.com/bhubaneswar-hospital.html.

Front View

Close up of the main building 

A ward with nurse station

Administration Block

View from portico

January 5th, 2012

ESI Corporation is eying the private colleges to increase its IPs (insured persons); that may be the reason it instists that its medical college in Odisha be in the Bhubaneswar area

Following is from the page http://esic.nic.in/coverage.htm.

Applicability
Under Section 2(12) The Act is applicable to the factories employing 10 or more persons irrespective of whether power is used in the process of manufacturing or not.

Under Section 1(5) of the Act, the Scheme has been extended to shops, hotels, restaurants, cinemas including preview theatre, road motor transport undertakings and newspaper establishment employing 20 or more persons.

Further, u/s 1(5) of the Act, the Scheme has been extended to Private Medical and Educational Institutions employing 20 or more persons in certain States .

Following is from a report in Times of India.

All educational institutions, including public, private, aided or those run by individuals, trusts and societies, and employing 20 or more persons should pay Employees State Insurance (ESI) premium for their employees, the Madras high court has ruled.

Justice K Chandru, dismissing a batch of writ petitions against the legality of a notification issued by the labour department of the Union territory of Puducherry, said: "Any establishment can be validly notified by the appropriate government to be covered by the provisions of the ESI Act."

The writ petitions were filed after the lieutenant-governor of the Union territory of Puducherry issued a notification mandating that educational institutions including public, private, aided or partially aided employees, run by individuals, trusts and societies, would be covered by the ESI Act if they employed 20 or more persons in their organisations on any day of the preceding 12 months.

Consequently, ESI sent notices to the organisations and directed them to cover their employees under the act. The ESI also followed it up with show-cause notices, and later sent prosecution notices threatening to levy damages under Section 85-B of the ESI Act. While some of the institutions paid up the amount, many of them filed writ petitions noting that the territorial administration lacked the legislative sanction to issue the notification as the Centre also could come out with such notifications.

It seems at this time Odisha government has not required private medical and education institutions be covered by ESI.  But perhaps ESI would like that and therefore it is trying to put up its medical college in Bhubaneswar, where 60-70% of the state’s private colleges (engineering, management, etc.) are.

The following ad came in today’s Dharitri.

July 20th, 2011

PIB: ESI Hospitals and medical colleges that have been sanctioned

Following is from PIB dated 16th March 2011.

The ESI Corporation has laid down norms for setting up of ESI hospitals. The ESI hospitals are sanctioned based on the request of the State Government and taking into consideration the requirement and norms laid down by the ESI Corporation. The ESI Corporation does not receive any budgetary support and, therefore, does not follow the Five Year Plan targets. It sets its own targets. The details of the ESI hospitals, as approved by the ESI Corporation, under construction are as under:

1. Baddi, Himachal Pradesh

2. Bhiwadi, Rajasthan

3. Manesar, Haryana

4. Peenya, Karnataka

5. Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu

6. Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

Hospitals sanctioned and proposed to be set up, as approved by the ESI Corporation, are as under:

1. Haridwar, Uttrakhand

2. Udham Singh Nagar, Uttrakhand

3. Ankleshwar, Gujarat

4. Udaipur, Rajasthan

5. Tirupur, Tamil Nadu

6. Lalru, SAS Nagar, Punjab

7. Angul, Orissa

8. Duburi, Jajpur District Orissa

9. Bhilai, Chhattisgarh

10. Korba, Chhattisgarh

Details of Medical Education Projects sanctioned (State-wise) are given as under:

 

  Sl.

No.

State

Institutions

 

 

 

PGIMSR

Medical

College

Dental

College

Nursing

College

Para-Medical

Training

Institute

 1.

Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad

Hyderabad

Hyderabad

 2.

Bihar

 

Patna

(Green Field

Project)

 3.

Gujarat

Ahmedabad

Naroda

Naroda

 4.

Haryana

Faridabad

 5.

Himachal

Pradesh

Mandi

(Green Field

Project)

 

 6.

 

 

Karnataka

Rajaji Nagar,

Bangalore

Bangalore

Gulbarga

(Green Field

Project)

Bangalore

 

Gulbarga

(Green Field

Project)

Indira Nagar,

Bangalore

Gulbarga

(Green Field

Project)

Gulbarga

(Green Field

Project)

                 

 7.

Kerala

Kollam

Kollam

 

 

 8.     

 

Maharashtra

Mulund

Mulund

Navi Mumbai

Andheri (E),

Mumbai

Parel, Mumbai

 9.

Madhya

Pradesh

  Indore

  Indore

10.

New Delhi

Basaidarapur

Basaidarapur

Rohini

11.

Orissa

Bhubaneswar

12.

Punjab

Ludhiana

(Green Field

Project)

13.

Rajasthan

Alwar

 

14.

 

Tamil Nadu

K.K. Nagar,

Chennai

Chennai

Ayanavaram,

Chennai

Coimbatore

15.

Uttar Pradesh

Kanpur

16.

Uttarakhand

Haridwar

(Green Field

Project)

                   

17.

 

West Bengal

Joka, Kolkata

Kolkata

Kolkata

Manicktala,

Kolakata

Baltikuri

               

 

At present, no project has been implemented under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

This information was given by Shri Mallikarjun Kharge, Minister for Labour and Employment in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.

YSK: PM

March 17th, 2011

IIT act to be ammended to include medicine; Despite objections by the Health Ministry IIT Kharagpur to start medical school in collaboration with Indian Railways

Following is an excerpt from a report in Times of India.

In a written reply in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, minister of state for HRD D Purandeshwari said the ministry has decided to amend the IIT Act, the law that governs IITs, to include medical science. The health ministry had said that IITs should not be allowed to start conventional courses in medicine.

The amendment, Purandeshwari said, would help IITs to offer programmes bringing together the diverse disciplines of medicine and engineering. Referring to the health ministry’s objection, she said, "However, appreciating the fact that the modern trends in medical education and research in technology and medicine in all the developed and most of the developing countries are seen hand-in-hand, the government proposes to incorporate `medicine’ in the IIT Act."

Purandeswari said the programme would bring the two important disciplines of medicine and engineering together.

… IIT Kharagpur has come up with a concrete proposal in this regard and plans to start a medical college in collaboration with Indian Railways. At a meeting of experts in the health ministry in February this year, it was observed that IITs should start courses on health information technology, biomedical engineering and e-health rather than running a hospital or starting MBBS courses.

There are several lessons that Odisha can draw from this.

  • As Purna Mishra suggested in a comment, VSSUT and the VSS Medical College in Burla should combine to form a single university.
  • NIT Rourkela and IIT Bhubaneswar should consider adding a medical college as part of the institute; NIT could include the proposed ESI medical college and IIT could include the proposed Railways medical college.

April 22nd, 2010

What are the exact districtwise IP numbers in Odisha? MP Pyari Mohapatra asks question on ESIC medical college in the Rajya Sabha.

MP Pyari Mohapatra’s question is in page 21 Q 1456 of http://164.100.47.5/EDAILYQUESTIONS/sessionno/219/830RS.pdf. See below for the question and the answer.

The above Q&A is referred to in the Pioneer report http://dailypioneer.com/246034/ESIC-issue-Labour-Minister-fumbles-at-Rourkela-meet.html. From the answer it is not clear what the IP situation really is. While the Bhubaneswar area may have very substantial number of IPs, there could still be more in the Rourkela area and the ESIC medical college should then be established in Rourkela. So saying "very substantial" is not meaningful.  I could not find the annexure mentioned in the Rajya Sabha answer.

If someone has the real data, please publish it so that any manipulation will become clear.

(Note: The discussion in this thread will be restricted to exact IP numbers in Odisha and nothing else.)

10 comments April 1st, 2010

Rourkelacity.com: CM favorable towards ESIC Medical College in Rourkela

Following is an excerpt from http://www.rourkelacity.com/top-news/naveen-patnaik-assured-and-indicates-green-signal-for-esic-medical-college-at-rourkela/.

Today under the leadership of Dr. Prafulla Majhi ( MLA , Talsara Constituency, Sundargarh ) about 6 MLAs from Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar met the Chief Minister Shri Naveen Patnaik and appraised him about the discontent among the civil society and people at Rourkela and Sundargarh on the on going issue of locating the ESIC Medical College. After giving a calm hearing to the MLAs , Naveen Patnaik said, being ESIC Medical College is a central Govt. project, the State Govt. doesn’t have any problem if the ESIC Corporation decides this to be at Rourkela. The state will facilitate accordingly and allocate the land. He further assured about checking the status of the project and do his best for Rourkela and its people. At the same time 20 representatives of people from the above districts, also handed over a memorandum for setting up ESIC Medical College and Hospital at Rourkela to the Chief Minister which he gladly accepted.

I hope this solves all the technical issues and the ESIC hospital and medical college is quickly established in Rourkela.


Assuming the above happens Rourkela would have a very good momentum towards becoming a Tier II city in India. Some of the other things that are happening in parallel are: (i) Faster progress with respect to BPUT (ii) Good progress on Hi-Tech Medical college (iii) Proposal for a metropolitan university in Rourkela and much more. In terms of knowledge infrastructure Rourkela would then have:

  • One institute of National importance: NIT
  • Two Universities: BPUT and Metropolitan University
  • Two medical Colleges: Hi-Tech and ESI
  • Two existing engineering colleges (Padmanava and Purushottam) and one more in pipeline (Rourkela Institute of Technology)
  • Good management institutes in RIMS Rourkela and IIPM Kansbahal.

I hope now Rourkela will have the momentum and its people will take their own initiatives so that steps such as the ones we earlier mentioned in  https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/3480 will be taken and  Rourkela will march towards becoming a Tier II city of India.

Among people driven initiatives the first one to be taken is to push SAIL to create a medical college and an engineering college in Rourkela and approaching top institutions in Odisha and India to open a campus in Rourkela.

5 comments March 13th, 2010

Bhubaneswar decided as the ESIC medical college location in Odisha: Rajya Sabha answer

March 7th, 2010

Progress on ESIC medical college – Expected to be operational in 2012: Samaja

February 14th, 2010

Some ESIC Medical College related correspondences between Bhubaneswar and Delhi

February 14th, 2010

Labor minister Pushpendra Singh Deo appeals on ESIC Medical College

Following is from Samaja.

This creates an interesting situation. On one hand Rourkela is really the right location for the ESIC Medical college; but on the other hand changing of an already announced location can be dangerous in that it opens up other attempts to change other locations. No announcement of a location will be safe as  people from other aspiring areas will keep trying to change it and some of that may result in instability and chaos.

While ESIC medical college case is a very very special case,  and we tried to make that case, it seems to be very difficult to make people understand that. Even we have failed in that in these pages.

That may be one of the reasons Orissa government is being stubborn on the ESIC Medical college case.

As the Telangana case illustrates how one decision can have snowball effect on the rest of the country, unless the ESIC case is carefully handled (by all sides) it can create chaos across the state.

December 27th, 2009

First hint that the CM is aware of the ESIC medical college in Rourkela issue

Following is an excerpt from a report in tathya.in.

Chief Minister has now demanded the Government of India to favour with a Dental and Nursing College for the Steel City, said official sources.

State Government in the Department of Labour & Employment (DOLE) has asked the Ministry of Labour to set up the facilities in Rourkela keeping in view the long standing demand of the people.

After Rourkela has been sidetracked for a Medical College & Hospital, the State Government has initiated the move to set up Dental College and College of Nursing in the city.

…Nearest Hospital for them is Sambalpur and IPs require frequent references for their dental problems.

Further there is extreme shortage of nursing staff in the health institutions of the state including ESI Medical Institutions.

So both Dental and Nursing College is needed, said Satya Prakash Nanda, Development Commissioner.

Mr.Nanda has taken up the issue with P C Chaturvedi, the Union Secretary Labour & Employment.

It has been agreed that ESIC would consider opening up of a Dental College and College of Nursing at Rourkela.

Investment in both the institutions will be around Rs.100 crores, said Sardar Jagar Singh, Secretary Labour & Employment.

Mr.Singh said that he has brought it to the notice of C D Kedar, the Director General ESIC.

Although a dental and nursing college (if it happens) is better than nothing, but it still does not seem to address the issue fairly. If there are more ESI insured people around Rourkela, the medical college should be established there. If there is some real logical reason why the medical college is being made in Bhubaneswar then the officials involved should spell that out.

26 comments December 9th, 2009

Progress in the right direction on the ESIC Rourkela front; but things need to move fast

The following is from Samaja e-paper. (Sambada also reports on this.)

I think the situation is clear. All the biggies from Rourkela, including MLA and minister from Rourkela Mr. Sarada Nayak, are now publicly united on this. The Orissa government does not seem to have any opposition except that they don’t want to lose it out of Orissa. So what is needed is an indication from the center that they do not mind having it in Rourkela. However, such an indication needs to come very soon as other reports still mention about progress with respect to the Bhubaneswar location. (See also this report in expressbuzz.com.)

1 comment October 14th, 2009

ESIC Medical college in Rourkela; latest news

Update: Various trade unions and local organizations in Rourkela have signed a joint memorandum. The details are at:  http://www.odiasamaja.org/esic-medical-college-trade-unions-variour-organizations-support/


Following is an excerpt from a report in Pioneer.

Hundreds of e-mails reached the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) urging him to impress upon the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) for establishment of the college and hospital in the steel city. The Prime Minister and the Union Minister for Labour were flooded with mails and memorandums. Bur it seems nobody in the Government is bothered about the hue and cry raised by the people from various sections of the society.

“If there is any place fit for an ESIC Medical College & Hospital, it is Rourkela,” said a top Orissa Government official. Then how come the Government is silent over the demand and has allowed the ESIC to set up the college and hospital in Bhubaneswar? “You better ask the Chief Minister,” said the officer on the condition of anonymity. Now, as the ESIC has been allotted land on the outskirts of the capital city, chances of Rourkela seem remote, admitted the official.

Interestingly, when the people of Rourkela joined the bandwagon for demanding the medical college and hospital in the steel city, local MLA Sarada Prasad Nayak, who is the Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Welfare remained silent. Similarly, Minister for Labour and Employment Puspendra Singh Deo, who also hails from Western Orissa, quietly favoured the college to come up in Bhubaneswar.

The ESIC will spend Rs 600 crore for the medical college and hospital, a dental college and a nursing college in the same campus, said sources. Officials point out that as there is no full-fledged airport near Rourkela, the Centre will not agree to setting up of a medical college there.

The mention about Rourkela not having airport and hence center may not agree is bogus. I don’t see any connection betweem an airport and an ESIC medical college. Indeed two other locations where ESIC medical colleges are being established do not have a nearby airport either. They are Gulbarga, Karnataka and Alwar, Rajasthan. (Thanks to Prashant babu for pointing to  the second one.)

5 comments October 5th, 2009

Some National Institutions/Universities and their locations; planning for the future in Orissa

Update on 27th April 2011: The Central University location has been changed to Bander Sindri near Ajmer and only 80 kms from Jaipur. The Innovation University (previsouly referred to as National University) aiming for world class is now pushed for Jaipur. [Times of India].


Tathya.in has a report that mentions some official saying that because of the lack of an airport in Rourkela central government will not agree to have ESIC medical college in Rourkela. I think this is a completely frivolous argument; I don’t see much connection between an ESIC medical college and an airport. (Often airport is a codeword for adequate infrastructure. If that is the case Rourkela indeed has the infrastructure for an ESIC medical college.)

However, in regards to certain centrally funded institutions, such a requirement is in the background and mentioned by journalists, even if they may not be spelled out explicitly. So while pushing for an ESIC medical college in Rourkela, we should set our target to push for more functioning airports as a next action item. Following is a more detailed analysis.


Given below are the locations of some national institutions and some related attributes. It is easy to see that for the locations of IITs, IIMs and National Universities being near (say within 120 kms or 2 hrs) an operational airport has been an important factor. For national universities, in addition being in a large (1 million plus metropolitan area) area with other research institutes has also been spelled out as an important criteria and it is reflected in the locations that are picked.  

On the other hand, the newly established central universities are in towns of all sizes and the locations of the NITs are mixed. The next level centrally funded but locally focused technological institutes, SLIET, Longowal, ABAGKC IET, Malda and Central Institute of Technology, Kokrajhar are on purpose established in rural areas and smaller towns. Unlike the NITs these institutions take only local students and also have programs focused on local needs. Nevertheless, their quality need not be bad. For example, SLIET is considered quite good.

Looking to the future following are some points relevant to Orissa.

  • For Orissa to have future central institutions like IIM, SPA, etc. to be in a location outside of Bhubaneswar, Orissa must push for the quick establishment of airports and other infrastructure in other parts of the state. For example, the airports in Jharsuguda and Rourkela are the closest to be operational and they should  have scheduled flights at the earliest. Otherwise new centrally funded institutions may again be established near Bhubaneswar and crying hoarse after the fact may not be productive.
  • Similarly the knowledge commission has proposed the establishment of 50 national universities in the long run. Considering that the education budget significantly increases from one 5 yr plan to the next, I would not be surprised if there is another set of them made during the 12th plan. Orissa must be prepared for that and by that time (there is a short window) have other areas in Orissa with adequate infrastructure that are being deemed necessary for a national university.
  • Orissa must take advantage of the industrial and investment interests in Orissa, mostly due to its minerals, and develop metropolitan areas with larger population base. Currently the local people are creating roadblocks rather than helping in such development.
  • In 2010 we should do our best to convince the planning commission, the PM and MHRD that the 12th plan (starting 2012) should include more centrally funded institutions of the kind that can be located in rural or semi-urban areas. In particular,
    • A centrally funded but locally focused technological institute (like SLIET) in all states. The one in Orissa could be located in Kalahandi or Balangir, the other two KBK districts that lack centrally funded institutions.
    • Two regional universities in each major states that are funded 50-50 by the state and the center. (This would be better than one centrally funded institute.)
    • Multiple branches of Indira Gandhi National Tribal University in districts with high tribal population.
       

The NITs.

City/Town State Population of city/town Population rank
Delhi Delhi 18,639,762 2
Surat Gujarat 3,196,799 10
Jaipur Rajasthan 3,102,808 11
Patna Bihar 2,656,318 13
Nagpur Maharashtra 2,569,775 14
Bhopal MP 1,751,766 17
Allahabad UP 1,272,612 31
Jamshedpur Jharkhand 1,252,815 33
Srinagar J & K 1,104,489 41
Calicut Kerala 1,000,802 46
Tiruchirapalli Tamil Nadu 963,237 49
Jalandhar Punjab 958,854 50
Raipur Chhatisgarh 795,104 56
Dehradun Uttarakhand 738,889 57
Warangal Andhra Pradesh 656,298 61
Surathkal, Mangalore Karnataka 612,374 66
Pudducherry Pudducherry 575,027 71
Rourkela Orissa 550,668 75
Durgapur West Bengal 543,922 77
Shillong Meghalaya 304,596 136
Aizawl Mizoram 295,864 140
Imphal Manipur 279,679 147
Agartala Tripura 218,028 184
Silchar Assam 209,543 193
Kurukshetra (Thaneswar) Punjab 157,609 249
Panaji Goa 142,336 271
Kohima Nagaland 103,210 407
Gangkot Sikkim 32,483  
Hamirpur Himachal Pradesh 17,219  

The IITs

City – Metropolitan area State(s) Metro population Metro rank State or country Capital Rank in state Number 1 in the state Nearest airpot Preferred airport
Bombay Maharashtra 21347412 1 Yes 1 picked in area same
Delhi UP, Delhi, Haryana 18639762 2 Yes 1 picked in area same
Chennai Tamil Nadu 7305169 4 Yes 1 picked in area same
Hyderabad Andhra Pradesh 6290397 6 Yes 1 picked in area (60 kms away) same
Gandhinagar – Ahmedabad Gujarat 5334314 7 Yes 1 picked Ahmedabad (40 kms) same
Kanpur Uttar Pradesh 3494275 9 No 1 picked in area (only Air India) Lucknow (80 kms)
Patna Bihar 2656318 13 Yes 1 picked in area same
Indore Madhya Pradesh 2049193 15 No 1 picked in area same
Bhubaneswar Orissa 1666429 22 Yes 1 picked in area same
Guwahati Assam 1038071 44 Yes 1 picked in area same
Ropar – Chandigarh Punjab 1033671 45 Yes 3 Ludhiana (19) Chandigarh (60 kms away) same
Jodhpur Rajasthan 987919 47 No 2 Jaipur  (11) in area same
Kharagapur West Bengal 511303 82 No 5 Kolkata (3) Kolkata (120 kms away) same
Roorkee – Haridwar Uttarakhand 250645 166 No 2 Dehradun (57) Dehradun (1 hr away) Delhi (180 kms)
Mandi Himachal Pradesh 32014   No 3 Shimla (194) Kullu-Manali airport (60 kms away) same

National Universities

City – Metropolitan area State(s) Metro population Metro rank State or country Capital Rank in state Number 1 in the state Airport with scheduled flights Other airport nearby
NOIDA – Delhi UP, Delhi, Haryana 18639762 2 Yes 1 picked yes  
Kolkata West Bengal 15414859 3 Yes 1 picked yes  
Gandhinagar – Ahmedabad Gujarat 5334314 7 Yes 1 picked yes  
Pune Maharashtra 5273211 8 No 2 Mumbai (1) yes  
Jaipur Rajasthan 3102808 11 Yes 1 picked Yes  
Patna Bihar 2656318 13 Yes 1 picked yes  
Bhopal Madhya Pradesh 1751766 17 Yes 2 Indore (15) yes  
Bhubaneswar Orissa 1666429 22 Yes 1 picked yes  
Coimbatore Tamil Nadu 1644224 23 No 2 Chennai (4) yes  
Kochi Kerala 1541175 24 No 1 picked yes  
Visakhapatnam Andhra Pradesh 1511687 26 No 2 Hyderabad (6) yes  
Mysore Karnataka 1230039 34 No 2 Bangalore (5) New airport but no scheduled flights yet 140 kms from Bangalore
Amritsar Punjab 1206918 36 No 2 Ludhiana (19) yes  
Guwahati Assam 1038071 44 Yes 1 picked yes  

New Central Universities

City – Metropolitan area State Metro population
Gandhinagar – Ahmedabad (temporary?) Gujarat 5,334,314
Srinagar J & K 1,104,489
Khunti, Ranchi  Jharkhand 1,066,449
Jammu J & K 690,924
Bikaner (Changed to be in Bander Sindri, near Ajmer, 80 kms from Jaipur) Rajasthan 624,577 613,293
Gulbarga Karnataka 534,417
Sagar Madhya Pradesh 351,537
Bilaspur Chhatisgarh 319,129
Bathinda Punjab 269,520
Koraput-Sunabeda-Jeypore Orissa 200,000
Motihari Bihar 121,475
Tiruvarar Tamil Nadu 61,270
Kasaragod Kerala 52,683
Tehri Garhwal Uttarakhand 25,425
Mahendragarh Harayana 23,977
Kangra Himachal Pradesh 9,155

IIMs

 

City – Metropolitan area State Metro population Airport
Kolkata West Bengal 15414859 in area
Bangalore Karnataka 6466271 in area
Ahmedabad Gujarat 5334314 in area
Lucknow Uttar Pradesh 2991280 in area
Indore Madhya Pradesh 2049193 in area
Ranchi Jharkhand 1066449 in area
Kozhikode Kerala 1000802 in area
Tiruchirapalli Tamil Nadu 963237 in area
Raipur Chhatisgarh 795104 in area

Dehradun

Kashipur

Uttarakhand

738889

92978

in area

72 km away in Pantnagar

Udaipur Rajasthan 456994 in area
Rohtak Haryana 340319 71 kms from Delhi
Shillong Meghalaya 304596 in area

October 4th, 2009

Movement to bring ESIC Medical College to Rourkela

September 19, 2009: Nice coverage in Khabara; From http://www.odiasamaja.org/wp-content/uploads/esi.jpg.


September 12-13, 2009: My friend Purna Mishra has written another nice email to the CM and MP Mr. Khuntia. Following is his letter.

Dear Esteemed Chief Minister Mr. Patnaik and Member of Parliament Mr. Khuntia,

From what I hear you both have been working at the opportunity to bring the ESI Medical College to Rourkela and get it funded at the earliest. I thank you for your vision and desire to make Orissa one of the leading states.

Even states with fewer employees in their ESI pool have already started the construction project (e.g., Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, etc.). Since the employees pay for their medical care, ESI is going to establish a medical college in Orissa as this is the ESI mandate.

In my last email, I mentioned a few benefits it would bring if this medical college is established in Rourkela. I found a much bigger benefit to Orissa if this medical college is established in Rourkela. The Phase-I construction cost alone is close to 500 crores. These are the cost of tenders over the last couple of years for the following ESI medical colleges:

1. Patna: 520 Crores
2. New Delhi: 617.87 Crores
3. Bangalore: 490 Crores
4. Dental Medical College, Mumbai: 158 Crores

The tenders for Kerala, Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh will be at least 450 crores each.

In this down economy where the central and state governments are giving incentives for private and public investments in local economy, let us see how an cash investment of 500+ crores in construction alone over a 2 year period will jump start the economy of north western Orissa. As most of the economists agree, the investment in construction sector brings the most help for local economy. Last time Rourkela received a serious investment was during the modernization drive where a capitalization of 5000 crores for expansion was made. But most of this investment were spent in acquiring
machineries and did not bring any direct investment to support the local economy. Even the second modernization scheme announced in 2005 for RSP was only 350 crores and again most of that investment was made to acquire
machineries. This will be for the first time in several decades that Rourkela and the north western Orissa would be receiving a investment of 500+ crores in local economy. Please do your best to bring this jumbo sized investment at your earliest. In this down economy this jumbo investment will jump start the local economic growth engine.

We need to build another city in Orissa that could complement Bhubaneswar as we make Orissa one of the leading states in India. The only other city that has this potential at this time is Rourkela.

The people of Orissa who will immensely benefit and will be eternally thankful for you standing up to the ESI babus and do what is right for Orissa.

With my best regards,

— Purna


September 11, 2009: Today’s Pioneer has a long article on this. (Thanks to Prashant Sahoo for the pointer.) Looks like a lot of organizations in Rourkela are now involved. But we should not rest easy until the demand is met. Following is an excerpt from that article.

It is learnt from sources that people from different walks of life have been sending e-mails to the Orissa Chief Minister requesting him to consider the relocation of the proposed ESIC Medical College. In the latest development, many Non-Resident Oriyas (NROs) are not only writing e-mails to the CM but also they are in regular touch with various civil society organisations of Rourkela to strengthen the drive into a people’s movement.

Many retired and working professors of NIT and other leading educational institutions of Rourkela like Prof Somanath Mishra, Prof SK Patel, Prof KC Patra, Prof DM Praharaj, Prof P Panda, Prof P Mallick and many others have come out openly to write letters to the CM along with pursuing others to join the movement. Even they have urged the people’s representatives of the district to take up the matter with the CM. Similarly, many civil society organisations like Disha, Envicare, Visstar, Ores, Cause, Sahayata, Basti Unnayan Samiti and many other groups have joined this drive.

Unlike others, many journalists like Pratap Padhee, Subrat Choudhury, Aurobinda Das, Sanjib Nayak, Mahendra Mishra, AP Biswal, KP Mohapatra and writers and columnists like Narayan Prasad Dash, Bhupen Mohapatra, Debendra Mohanty, KC Badjena, Bishnupriya Mohapatra and Arta Trana Mohapatra have also joined the drive. Similarly, many trade unions like RMS, SETU, RSS, SEAR, KISS, ILU, RWU, SMS and students’ organisations like SFI, AISF, ABVP, DSO and NSUI have also started campaign on their respective level. Even many student leaders have started signature campaign in their respective campuses.


September 10, 2009:

Dear all:

Following is an update on the efforts towards bringing ESIC Medical College to Rourkela.

  • Lots of emails have been sent to the CM’s office.
  • Among the media, Tathya.in and Pioneer have covered it.
  • The email campaign is active in several groups. (myodisa, ornet, agamiorissa, nis-iiser etc.)
  • An explicit yahoo group Rourkela Forum has been formed. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rourkelaforum/
  • An e-petition has been created http://www.petitiononline.com/ESI4RKLA/petition.html.
  • MP Ram Khuntia has been contacted by phone and email.
  • To avoid this topic to get buried under other newer topics in Orissalinks, I have put it in the scrolling bar as well as put it prominently in red in the right hand side bar towards the top. Clicking any of those links will bring it to this article and people can comment on it. Instead of creating new posts I will just update this post.
  • Members of Myodisa are in the process of sending a memorandum to the CM.
  • Orissa Society of the Americas is also in the process of sending a memorandum to the CM.

Next Steps:

  • Continue emails, faxes, letters.
  • Get more and more people to join the movement and join the Rourkela Forum yahoo group.
  • Do some ground action in Rourkela.
  • Contact MP Hemanada Biswal as soon as possible.
  • Get more media coverage.

15 comments September 10th, 2009

Purna Mishra’s well-argued appeal to the CM about establishing ESIC medical college in Rourkela

Dear Esteemed Chief Minister Mr. Patnaik and Member of Parliament Mr. Khuntia,

I am writing this note to plead before you the need to have the ESI medical college in Rourkela. ESI administration has made an easy decision and you both know from your long public career that easy decisions are not always the best decisions. If we look at the existing ESI medical colleges there are many which are not locate in the state capital. The decision in the last 2-3 years to have the ESI medical College in Himachal Pradesh to be located in Mandi (150 km from Shimla) could be a basis for arguing why this ESI medical college for Orissa could not be located in Rourklela?

Here are the reasons I believe why thi ESI medical should be located in Rourkela instead of Bhubaneswar:

1. Orissa has close to 50+ ESI medical clinics and a half dozen or so medical hospitals. These ESI clinics are the Tier-III medical facilities where the patients go initially for the consultation. Based on the severity of their cases, they are referred to the Tier-II ESI medical hospitals. Most  of these Tier-II ESI medical hospitals are located closer to Rourkela than Bhubaneswar. Based on the numbers of members and their usage pattern, one could easily see most of these members live in places closer to Rourkela
than Bhubaneswar.

2. When these ESI members travel to these medical hospitals, the out of pocket allowance they receive from ESI is meager. So it would be an additional hardship for these members to travel to Bhubaneswar at a greater distance and a costlier city for specialty medical care.

3. Since most of the Tier-II medical facilities are located closer to Rourkela, it would be a boon for the ESI doctors working in these hospitals to get additional training and the patients could be referred for additional diagnostics (CAT scan, MRI scan, Ultrasound, advanced blood works) and thus improving the decision making if the medical college to be located closer to the existing hospitals.

4. Most of these members live in the geographical segment of Orissa that is under the evil grip of the growing Sickle Cell disease and cerebral malaria. Both these medical challenges require quick access to specialty medical care which could be provided if these patients travel to the specialty medical closer to their home which again makes Rourkela a more ideal location.

5. ESI would be spending 600 crores to build and run this medical college. Orissa should not lose this investment. Also 50% of the seats would be reserved for students from the domiciled state which would again benefit our children if we get this medical college in Orissa.

6. The state has to give a contiguous cluster of 35 acres of land for this ESI medical college at no cost to ESI. This kind of land would cost close to at least 10 crores an acre in Bhubaneswar whereas it would cost no more than a crore in Rourkela. From a pure selfish perspective, why not we give 35 crores (35 acres in Rourkela) rather than 350 crores (35 acres in Bhubaneswar) to get this investment of 600 crores from ESI.

We are looking up to you to work across the party lines to get this beneficial scheme for Orissa. To have this medical college in Rourkela would significantly improve the health of the growing workforce and thus bring in additional investments for Orissa. We know you both could make this happen and the ESI members would be eternally thankful to you for your leadership.

With my best regards,

Purna
ps – Originally from Bhubaneswar but currently lives in North America

1 comment September 6th, 2009

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