Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) will soon establish seven more hospitals in the worker-dominated areas of Chhattisgarh. labour Minister Chandrashekhar Sahu has instructed the officers concerned to complete all preparations for the establishment of these hospitals soon.
According to an official press statement issued here on Thursday, these hospitals would be opened in Bhilai-3 in Durg district, Bilha in Bilaspur district, Jamgaon in Raigarh district, Tumdibod in Rajnandgaon district, Pathadi in Korba district and Dabhra and Akaltara in Janjgir-Champa district.
The release said that employees working in the organised sector and their kin are getting free treatment facility and free medicines from the 26 hospitals of ESIC, established in different worker dominated areas of Chhattisgarh.
ESIC refers seriously ill patients for treatment in reputed hospitals outside the State also.The State labour department, during the last one decade has expanded the ESI services and implemented it in many new industrial areas. As a result, the number of insured employees in the State now has crossed the 3.5 lakh mark.
At the time of the formation of the state, the number of insured employees was only 30,000.According to the press statement, on the initiative of Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh, the Employees State Insurance Corporation, in order to provide better treatment facilities to the employees of organised sectors in the industrial and worker-dominated areas of the State, would soon establish three, 100-bed all facility hospitals in Raipur, Durg and Korba industrial cities.
For the construction of these hospitals, the State Government has allotted nine acre land at Ravanbhatta in Raipur and five acre land at Rampur in Korba free of cost to the ESIC, whereas, in Bhilai, five acre land has been earmarked for the hospital and process to allot the land to ESIC is going on.The Delhi based ESIC headquarters would soon start the construction of these hospitals, the release added.