Monitor News Bureau
Srinagar, Jan 02: The J&K Government has failed to provide utilisation certificates of Rs 275 crore it received from the Government of India in 2016-17 to create and upgrade peripheral healthcare infrastructure in the state.
The delay has put a freeze on any further allocations out of the Rs 900-crore project that was approved in Prime Minister’s Development Package (PMDP) 2015 for augmenting health infrastructure in the state.
The matter came to fore in a review meeting chaired by Secretary Ministry of Home Affairs, Rajiv Gauba, at New Delhi on November 11.
Chief Secretary J&K, B B Vyas, along with other top officials from the state and centre attended the meeting.
In addition to not providing the utilisation certificates, the J&K government is yet to release its balance share of Rs 27.5 crore (10 percent) for that year, the meeting was told.
In most Government of India schemes implemented in J&K, the state is expected to provide only 10 percent of the cost, while the remaining 90 is funded by the Centre.
The state is also failed to provide Detailed Project Reports and gap analysis in respect of the balance works which are pending approval under PMDP- 2015.
While the State’s Health Ministry, day in and day out, come out with rosy statements, a look at their spending pattern, reveals, if nothing more, the administrative unwillingness even as ample money and resources are available to them.
Official documents revealing the recent figures show the state has only spent Rs 151 crores of the Rs 275 crore released by GoI with most of the project works in upgrading the peripheral health infrastructure undone.
Of the 114 works under the project, most included upgrading District, Sub-District Hospitals (SDHs), Community Health Centres (CHCs) and Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) across J&K.
However, the physical progress statuses against at least 105 of them either show “work yet to start”, “work started” or “work nearing completion”.
A few amongst the undone lot are: District Hospital of Kupwara (where only the columns of the to-be constructed IPD block have been raised), Trauma Hospital Bijbehara (where “brick work is under progress”), 50-bedded CHC at Hajin Bandipora (“work nearing completion”), SDH Bhaderwah (“Hospital blocks completed and made functional except two Operation Theatres”), SDH Magam (“work nearing completion”), Children Hospital Srinagar (“Structure raised, finishing in progress”).
The 900-crore PMDP project of upgrading health infrastructure in J&K is supposed to be completed by 2018-19. Going by the present pace, another delay of delays is inevitable.
