The State Government has initiated steps for establishment of hospitals on public-private partnership (PPP) mode under its health sector investment policy. A proposal to this effect was discussed at the Empowered Committee on Infrastructure meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi at the State Secretariat here on Monday.
Principal Secretary (PPP Cell) Pradeep Kumar Jena presented the project and Health & Family Welfare Secretary Pramod Kumar Meherda outlined the administrative and financial issues for discussion.
The Chief Secretary directed the concerned officers to decide locations of the hospitals taking into account the existing health service facilities and newly coming up medical colleges. Development Commissioner R Balakrishan wanted to give priority to the areas having no secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities.
Meherda told reporters that it was decided to set up new quality care hospitals mostly in the KBK and KBK+ districts. The hospitals would be set up on PPP mode. It was proposed to establish 19 hospitals in 18 districts on the parameters of backwardness in health indicators.
The hospitals would be of two different categories. One type would be 100-bed and another type 200-bed. The total bed capacity in three different phases would be around 2,600.
The Government would provide land at concessional rate with other infrastructural facilities. The Government would also decide the tariffs of treatment in these hospitals. The private parties would make necessary investments for setting up the hospitals and would bring in more specialists and clinical personnel.
As of now, an investor conference has already been held in Bhubaneswar to get inputs from potential investors regarding feasibility of the project and methods of its operation. A total of 71 healthcare providing organisations from the State, national and international levels participated in the conference and expressed their interest to invest in the project.
The project is expected to create direct employments for 9,500 persons. The total private sector investment would be around Rs 1150 crore. The issues relating to norms of transaction, conditions in bid document, viable gap funding from the Government, contract conditions, monitoring and management of the proposed project, etc., were discussed at the meeting.
The Chief Secretary directed the Health & Family Welfare Department to prepare a detailed project with inputs of the day’s meeting and place it for Government approval.