Muzaffarpur: The state government has approved a proposal to select a cancer hospital site on the Shri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH) premises.

Principal secretary in the health department, Sanjay Kumar, who was in Muzaffarpur recently, held a high-level meeting with the health authorities, including district magistrate Dharmendra Kumar Singh and paved the way for construction of a cancer hospital.

The district magistrate said the requisite need of 15 acres of land is already available on the SKMCH premises.

The state government had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital, Mumbai for establishing the cancer hospital at an estimated cost of Rs 200 crore.

A team from Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital, Mumbai, will soon arrive at Muzaffarpur for a spot inspection. The district magistrate said the necessary formalities of land acquisition and other paper work will be completed shortly.

Sources said SKMCH authorities were unwilling to provide a single 15-acre plot but later agreed. Officials said SKMCH had offered two seven-acre plots each within the campus but the Tata Memorial Cancer Hospital refused and exerted pressure on the government to facilitate a single plot of 15 acres.

Ultimately the government came up with 15 acres.

Later, principal secretary, health, Sanjay Kumar, reviewed preparedness with the SKMCH and Government Sadar Hospital authorities to tackle threat of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) effectively. SKMCH superintendent G.K. Thakur said the government has once again geared machinery to set up a 60-bed intensive care unit for AES at SKMCH.

No suspected AES case has arrived so far and the doctors are prepared to check it's menace, the superintendent said.