Cuttack: Site for the proposed second campus project of Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre (AHRCC) at Naraj here has been shifted to another location due to diversion of the land to Industrial Development Corporation of Odisha (Idcol).

The AHRCC's governing body had approved 68 acres for the new campus at Naraj in July last year. It had also approved the installation of MRI scan and PET/CT scan machines on public-private-participation (PPP) mode.

The state-run AHRCC is an autonomous institution that has the state health minister as the ex-officio chairman of its governing body. When the issue of delay in availability of land for the second campus figured at the governing body meeting on Friday, another 47 acres at Ratagada in Barang tehsil was approved.

Health minister Pratap Jena assured to expedite the process of transfer of land from the revenue department to the health department.

AHRCC director Lalatendu Sarangi said that allotment to Idcol came in the way of making available the land for the second campus, which was earlier identified in Naraj. Now the second campus will be set up in Barang.

"A second campus has become essential in view of the increasing number of cancer patients," Sarangi said.

Thousands of patients from Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Bengal depend on the 400-bed hospital. Its annual patient turnout has climbed from 23,000 to 33,000 in the past six years.

Inadequate advanced diagnostic facilities such as MRI scan and PET/CT scan along with progress made for their introduction were also discussed at the meeting.

"Installation of PET/CT machines will be done shortly," the AHRCC director said.

The AHRCC has been managing with CT scan and no MRI facility.

An AHRCC oncologist said the PET/CT scan was an advanced nuclear imaging technique that combined positron emission tomography (PET) and computed tomography (CT) into one machine. A PET/CT scan reveals information on both the structure and function of the cells and tissues in the body in a single imaging session.