Bolpur, Aug. 11: Bolpur is set to have a Rs 5-crore, 100-bed hospital in about a year.

The Birbhum district authorities have agreed to provide Sriniketan-Santiniketan Development Authority, which will build the hospital, with a one-and-a-half-acre plot near the town’s primary health centre.

The hospital will have a modern radiology unit and a laboratory capable of doing hormone and enzyme profiles and ions-testing. It will carry out biopsies and laparoscopic surgery, and have a 16-bed intensive care unit.

An authority official said the site is close to the railway station as well as the bus terminus. “It will be easier for patients arriving by train or bus. Work is expected to begin by September and we expect to complete it within a year.”

The hospital will run on a no-loss, no-profit basis, said the authority’s executive officer, Ashok Das. There will be 10 free beds.

Currently, three hospitals ? the Suri Sadar Hospital and the two subdivisional hospitals at Bolpur and Rampurhat ? are the mainstay of healthcare in Birbhum.

The 127-bed Bolpur subdivisional hospital treats about a lakh people a year at its outpatient department. There’s a huge rush of patients from neighbouring Ilambazar, Nanoor, Kirnahar and Labhpur. About 25,000 patients are treated indoors a year.

About 8 to 10 per cent patients are referred to Burdwan Medical College Hospital or to hospitals in Calcutta.

“The new hospital will have facilities we don’t have,” said the superintendent of Bolpur Subdivisional Hospital.