On a day when two labourers died and four were seriously injured on Wednesday when a mound of earth caved in at a construction site on the premises of All India Medical Science (AIIMS), the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare’s report on the functioning of AIIMS pointed out to ‘the pathetic situation’ of infrastructure projects saying that most of the projects either have missed or lagging behind the set time and cost deadlines.
Earlier also a building wall had collapsed at the convergence block due to some negligence at the construction site. Not only this, the much-hyped AIIMS tunnel project costing about Rs40 crore is stuck due to unknown reasons. The tunnel is supposed to take patients from AIIMS hospital’s main building to trauma centre. Earlier also, the issues of water stagnation inside the parking was a problem due to the painstakingly slow pace of construction.
Of the five projects (both completed and ongoing) of Oversight Committee costing Rs615.87 crore, have witnessed ‘time overruns’ and cost escalations while the fifth project concerning the construction of House are AV Nagar is yet to be finally approved by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation.
“The committee is very much concerned with these delays and desires them it to be addressed with utmost gravitas and promptitude. The committee, therefore, impress upon various agencies involved in the expansion process of infrastructure in AIIMS to revolve the clearance issue in a time bound manner as health infrastructure cannot be held ransom to technical issues like clearances and that too in the national Capital of the county,” read the Parliamentary Standing Committee’s report.
“The committee also desires that the issue be taken up at the highest level in the ministry with the counterparts’ ministries dealing with agencies involved in implementation of the infrastructure projects to ensure that there is no further delay in the schedule laid down for implementation and completion of various projects in AIIMS,” stated the report.
“The committee also recommends the department to ensure that there is no cost escalation of projects and the work of on-going projects is executed within the approved cost,” the report further stated.
The Pioneer tried to contact AIIMS spokesperson Dr Amit Gupta but he was not available despite repeated attempts.