In his third visit to Jharkhand in past six months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate three medical colleges built with a cost of nearly Rs 885 crore and other welfare projects worth around Rs 1000 crore during a public rally in Hazaribagh on February 17, officials said on Saturday.
A senior official from the Building Construction Department said that the construction of the three medical colleges to be inaugurated by the Prime Minister is almost complete and the assets would be handed over to the Health Department within the next two months.
Each of the three colleges, in Hazaribagh, Dumka and Daltanganj, is likely to have 100 seats and a hospital with 500 beds.
“While the main buildings of all the three colleges are ready to be handed over, the work of furnishing at hostels is in progress and the entire property can be handed over within two months. Classes can be started from the upcoming academic session,” said a senior official of the Building Construction Department, requesting anonymity.
Health Secretary Nitin Madan Kulkari said that the Health Department’s work will start soon after the buildings are handed over to it.
In September 2018, Modi laid the foundation stones for medical colleges in Koderma and Chaibasa. While laying foundation for the two 300-beded medical colleges, he said that Jharkhand’s push towards building healthcare infrastructure was an example of the NDA government’s quick steps towards development.
Besides the colleges, Modi is also likely to inaugurate the ‘Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi’ scheme, which promises Rs 6000 to each farmer holding up to two hectares of land. Announced in the latest interim budget, the scheme may earn the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) the support of otherwise disgruntled farmers, political experts have said.
This visit by the PM assumes significance as Jharkhand is set to go to polls in 2019 and this might be Modi’s last official visit to Jharkhand as the Prime Minister in his current term.
Riding the Modi wave, the BJP won 12 of 14 Lok Sabha seats in the State in 2014 – the highest by any political party since Jharkhand’s formation in 2000. Under his leadership, the BJP also won the assembly elections and formed a majority government for the first time here.
Chief Minister Raghubar Das held meetings with senior BJP leaders, office bearers and legislators on Thursday and gave them necessary instructions for the programme .
Hazaribagh has been a BJP stronghold since the days of unified Bihar.
From 1989 to 2014, the BJP won the constituency in six out of eight parliamentary elections, with former Union Minister Yashwant Sinha winning the seat thrice in the past 40 years.