Calcutta, Aug. 5 :    Calcutta, Aug. 5:  Perennial foes Coke and Pepsi are working hand-in-hand for once. The cola giants have decided to get involved in public service projects in the city taken up by the Calcutta Municipal Corporation. Mayor Subrata Mukherjee has welcomed offers from Coca Cola and Pepsi to run the CMC's proposed 20-bed malaria hospital in Kalighat and spruce up the civic body's canteen. Following the go-ahead from the mayor on Saturday, member, mayor-in-council (health) Javed Ahmed Khan discussed the issue with Devesh Shankar, business manager of Coca-Cola India, and Susen Kumar Das, manager, fountain service. Pepsico has already expressed its willingness to be associated with development projects of the CMC. In exchange, the company wants permission to set up fountain kiosks inside the Corporation premises. Coke, too, has accepted the offer to revamp the CMC canteen and is said to be considering the proposal for the malaria hospital also. Both the soft drink majors have offered a royalty of Re 1 to the Corporation for every glass of soft drink sold. Around 52,000 people visit the S.N. Banerjee Road headquarters of the civic body every day, and even if 20 per cent have a glass of soft drink while inside the premises, it means the Corporation earns more than Rs 10,000 daily. Assuming that it is open for around 300 days a year, it can earn up to Rs 30 lakh annually. 'If they involve themselves in our schemes, it will be possible for the CMC to offer treatment for malaria at an affordable price,' said Khan. He said Pepsi and Coke would not invest in setting up the hospital, but will share the burden of running expenses, which should come to about Rs 30 lakh a year. CMC has decided to set up a 20-bed dedicated malaria hospital in the city, the first of its kind in the country, which will be operational in April 2002. 'Thousands of people have died of malaria in Calcutta during the Left Front rule over the past 20 years and the city needs a specialised hospital to treat malaria,' the mayor said, adding that the CMC would take the help of NGOs in running the hospital. The idea of a dedicated malaria hospital had come from the regional epidemiologist of the ministry of health, Sultanate of Oman, Dr Kamalesh Sarkar, who is in charge of the malaria-eradication programme in that country. It will have indoor, outdoor and clinical facilities with air-conditioned cabins for well-off patients. According to Khan, the hospital will act as the hub of the CMC's 50 malaria-control clinics in different parts of the city. It will be the referral centre for these clinics. All these clinics will be linked with the hospital by telephones to feed micro-level malarial data which will be stored in a computer. Hospitals, nursing homes and pathological clinics will be requested to supply regular information on malaria cases treated or tested everyday..