Government’s super-specialty hospital finds no takers

The Delhi government’s 650-bed Rajiv Gandhi Super-Specialty Hospital at Tahirpur in east Delhi, the first super-specialty hospital planned under the public-private partnership (PPP) model, has been scrapped. Reason: it failed to find any takers.

The Delhi government’s 650-bed Rajiv Gandhi Super-Specialty Hospital at Tahirpur in east Delhi, the first super-specialty hospital planned under the public-private partnership (PPP) model, has been scrapped. Reason: it failed to find any takers.

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The state government will now run this hospital like any other government hospital in the city.

Although the state government had made several amendments in the proposal to attract bidders, it failed to generate the desired response. Under the PPP model, the private partner provides the facilities and manpower required for running the hospital that the state has built on its land.

“The Delhi government will run this hospital like other hospitals. We have pulled it out of the PPP model, because we could not find enough bidders,” said Dr AK Walia, state health minister.

A 300-bedded Super-specialty Hospital at Janak Puri was another project that was planned around same time under this model. While the Janak Puri hospital will be made fully functional as planned, the state health department has decided to take direct control of the functioning of the Rajiv Gandhi hospital. The health minister claimed that the location of the hospital was a major factor for the poor response.

“The land is very near to the Uttar Pradesh border. May be, that is why we did not get the desired result,” Walia said. Sources in the health ministry said unreasonable clauses in tenders that were floated during the past couple of years made bidders pull out of several projects. The amount that a private company needed to pay annually to the state government reportedly seemed too high.

“The proposal was modified several times to make it feasible but it did not strike the right chord with bidders,” said a senior health ministry official, requesting anonymity.

To start with, cardiology, cardiac surgery, nephrology, nephro surgery, gastroenterology and surgical gastroenterology departments will be made functional.

It will also have 50 dialysis machines to put some burden off the GTB Hospital. The other departments will be added gradually. “The work is in full swing, we should have everything in place by year-end,” said Walia.