The company entrusted with the construction of the super-speciality hospital at Phulwarisharif on Friday gave an undertaking to the high court that it would begin work in full steam immediately.

BL Kashyap & Sons Limited also told the court that it would furnish a detailed progress report of the construction of Jai Prakash Narayan All India Institute of Medical Sciences on August 29, the next date of hearing.

It provided the undertaking after the Centre filed a counter-affidavit through its counsel Vinay Pandey claiming that the company had been provided some designs but it had not completed the work.

The construction of the hospital was supposed to be completed by September 10. The company received Rs 284.7 crore from the Centre for the project. It had repeatedly claimed that it had not received construction designs from the Centre.

The division bench of Justice Prakash Chandra Verma and Justice Aditya Kumar Trivedi also recalled its August 8 order directing the managing director of the construction company to personally appear before it to explain the delay in construction.

The court had passed the order while hearing a PIL filed by the Council of Protection of Public Rights and Welfare seeking expeditious completion of the construction of the health hub and to make it operational by October 2 this year.

The bench had expressed anguish over the slow pace of construction work after perusing the Patna district magistrate’s report.

However, during the last hearing on Wednesday, Kashyap had informed the bench that the Supreme Court had stayed its order on the managing director’s personal appearance. On Friday, the bench also observed that its intention was not to punish but to make the hospital operational as soon as possible so that common people could benefit from it.

The court had constituted a three-member committee comprising the petitioner’s advocate, Brajesh Kumar, state government counsel Shashi Bhushan Kumar and Vinay Pandey on June 29 last year to inspect the progress of the construction of the hospital.

The committee had visited Guru Govind Singh Hospital in Patna City and reported about encroachment and garbage on the hospital premises. The court has asked Shashi Bhushan Kumar to instruct Patna district magistrate, who is also the deputy director of AIIMS administration, to have those removed.

The court said it would pass an appropriate order on August 29 if the work were not done.