Asim Dasgupta and Surjya Kanta Mishra at the inauguration of the nursing college. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

The government has blacklisted a firm and cancelled its contract for building an oncology unit at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital after it was found delaying the project.

“The contractor was delaying the project and the building was lying incomplete. So, we asked the public works department to blacklist it and cancel the contract,” finance minister Asim Dasgupta said on Monday. “The new contractor has been asked to complete the building by March next year.”

Dasgupta was speaking at the inauguration of a nursing college in the hospital.

The blacklisted firm was awarded the Rs 1.5-crore contract through the public works department (PWD). “Work on the four-storeyed building started in the 2006-07 fiscal and was scheduled to be over by December last year. But the builders left the job incomplete,” a hospital official said.

After issuing legal notices to the company, it was blacklisted and the contract was cancelled. “This is how action should be taken against contractors who keep projects incomplete,” said health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra who was present on the occasion.

Dasgupta announced that the Rs 25-crore trauma care centre at RG Kar would be complete within a year and a half. “The site for the 11-storeyed building has been identified and work will start soon,” he said.

The nursing college has 50 seats, of which 45 have been filled up for the first year. Two more nursing colleges will be set up at NRS Medical College and Hospital and Burdwan Medical College this year.