The CITU State unit in a memorandum to the Prime Minister of India has urged his immediate intervention into the matter of proposed ESIC medical college location and order favourably for its location at Rourkela.
The CITU leaders have mentioned that though a high power committee has opined that Bhubaneswar being the State capital has already many hospitals, including AIIMS, Railway hospital and two ESIC hospitals and stressed that the new ESIC medical college be set up at Rourkela, yet due to strong lobbying the medical college is going to be set up in Bhubaneswar.
They further said the insured persons (IPs) in Bhubaneswar and the entire coastal and south eastern belt of the State have already been getting the best treatment in several hospitals. So there is no need to establish the ESIC medical college at Bhubaneswar. It is injustice to the mission and vision of Social Security Scheme, they said.
Further justifying the demand to set up the medical college at Rourkela, the union said the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation of India is a multidimensional social security system tailored to provide socio-economic protection to the working population and their demands covered under the scheme from day one of insurable employment. The number of IPs in western Odisha substantially exceeds other parts of the State and a majority of workers in the region are tribals and low wage earners. As per the provision of ESIC rule, appallingly IPs have not been given the facility to carry serious patients by ambulance.
Western Odisha is yet to get a single Super Specialty Hospital. Serious patients are carried to far south east coastal areas ofm Cuttack-Bhubaneswar or outside the State, they said.Now, the ESIC won’t arrange the ambulance or expense of ambulance. Hence, the poor insured persons of the region need to incur Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000, besides making a journey of 10-12 hours covering a length of 450-500km. In many cases, the patients die on the way, they contended.
Besides, the contribution to ESIC generating from western Odisha, particularly from Rourkela, surpasses the rest of Odisha. Alone in the Rourkela Steel Plant, there are around 20,000 contractor workers covered under Social Security Scheme of the ESIC. Again Jharsuguda is a very big industrial belt; more and more industries are coming there. Sambalpur too is also developing very fast with many new industries and projects.
A good number of industries and projects are in pipeline that too will contribute to the existing enormous contribution from the region to the Government treasury. In spite of all these, the western Odisha in general and Sundargarh and Rourkela in particular are highly neglected, they lamented.CITU State committee leaders laxman Munda, Sibaji Pattanaik, Bishnu Mohanty, Jahangir Ali and Biman Maity gave the memorandum.