Health minister Mangal Pandey on Monday said the State Cancer Institute - the Rs 120 crore Centre-state joint project that promises to offer specialised treatment to cancer patients in Bihar - would start shortly at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences.

"Fourteen intensive care units (ICUs) will also be started at IGIMS apart from the 14 existing ICUs to give necessary medical assistance to critically ill patients," Pandey told The Telegraph after emerging from the IGIMS review meeting he chaired on Monday.

According to IGIMS sources, the hospital administration intimated Pandey of the hospital's requirements and pending proposals with both the state and the Centre.

Sources said the IGIMS administration also put up proposals on starting an organ bank, transplant centre and modern digitalised diagnostic centre among others to the health minister.

"I made a PowerPoint presentation on how an organ bank can be useful for IGIMS. We have already started corneal and kidney transplant facilities. Starting liver transplant is also on the cards but starting an organ bank on the lines of Organ Retrieval Banking Organisation at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, and Transplant Centre, wherein doctors can be trained on transplant-related matter is also required at IGIMS so that we can start transplant bone, pancreas, skin among other things. IGIMS has been made the State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation," said Biswas.

Pandey, however, said starting an organ bank on the lines of AIIMS-Delhi and Transplant Centre would take time to materialise. "A detailed project has to be made. All this is going to take time. But we have decided to start liver transplant by October this year," said Pandey.

Biswas said: "The proposal to start modern digitalised diagnostic centre was put up in the meeting so that we can conduct histopathology and cross-matching test required in kidney transplant surgeries here at the hospital. Presently, we are getting these tests done from labs like SRL Diagnostics among others."

The IGIMS administration had also put up a proposal regarding Health Information System, which can enable the hospital to maintain various electronic health records.

Among the Centre's pending proposals discussed in the meeting were the regional institute of ophthalmology for which IGIMS had sought funds, upgrade of IGIMS as a centre of excellence and starting various super-speciality departments such as neurosciences centre and cardiac centre among others.