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 CroresThe 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