Bihar State Medical Services and Infrastructure Corporation managing director Sanjay Kumar

The Bihar State Medical Services and Infrastructure Corporation’s plan to install computerised tomography (CT) scanners and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines in all six government medical colleges and hospitals could get delayed with the interested firms seeking more time to submit bids for the project.

The corporation’s managing director, Sanjay Kumar, on Tuesday said the last date for opening the bid documents was March 26 but the private agencies have sought an extension because they needed to visit the medical colleges and examine the “sites” where the machines are to be installed.

“We want the firms to install the machines on a turn-key basis. This means they will have to create the physical infrastructure required for the project. The sale of tender documents began on March 1 and bids were to be finalised on March 26. But the deadline has been extended by a few weeks. We hope to complete the process within three months,” Kumar told The Telegraph.

“As of now, firms are asked to put up and run the machines, while creating the physical infrastructure remains the responsibility of government agencies such as the public works department. Such a process takes a lot of time and the results are also not very good. We have, therefore, decided to expand the scope of work by the manufacturer/importer, who bags the project,” he added.

The health department has planned to install 128-slice CT scanners and 1.5-tesla MRI machines in medical colleges in a public-private partnership mode. All MRI machines are calibrated in tesla units.

The government will fix rates for these diagnoses at all state-run medical colleges — Patna Medical College and Hospital and Nalanda Medical College and Hospital in the capital, Anugrah Narayan Medical College and Hospital, Gaya, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College and Hospital, Bhagalpur, Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital, Muzaffarpur and Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital. Though the facilities will be subsidised, the machineries will be operated and maintained by the private companies that would enter into agreements with the state.

The absence of such equipment in tertiary-care centres has led to flourishing of CT scan and MRI centres near medical colleges, that often dupe patients.