Bhubaneswar, March 6: Gadakana, described by some as the “fastest growing urban epicentre” in the city, will shortly have its first government-run hospital.

The Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation has signed a tripartite agreement with the International Finance Corporation and the housing and urban development department to set up a multi-specialty, 250-bed hospital in the area.

International Finance Corporation (IFC) will identify the financier for the project. Sources said it could either be the Asian Development Bank or the French government. Work on the project is likely to start in six months.

The state government will have to pay Rs 2.73 crore ($50,000) as the transaction advisory fees to IFC for identifying the financier. The amount will come from the Odisha Urban infrastructure Development Fund, created for development of urban facilities in public-private-partnership (PPP) mode.

Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Sanjib Kumar Mishra told The Telegraph: “As part of the World Bank group, IFC is known for providing such assistance to similar projects worldwide, especially for health related PPP projects.”

At present, BMC’s hospital in Old Town behind the Lingaraj temple has 106 beds. The oldest hospital in the city, it started functioning in the late 1930s and was under the district board. Later, it came under the administrative control of the Bhubaneswar notified area council (NAC), municipality and then the municipal corporation. But the hospital has always been in the news for the wrong reasons. Falling and leaky roofs, dilapidated operation theatres and wastewater polluting the surroundings have been common complaints.

A proposal to move a renovated municipal hospital to a plot at Annie House Square in Old Town had to be dumped because of land acquisition issues and debate over the plot’s location.

On February 27, the municipal council approved the proposal for a multi-specialty hospital at Gadakana and renovation of the corporation hospital in Old Town. The hospital in Gadakana will help people from areas such as Nandankanan, Raghunathpur, Patia, Damana, Mancheswar, Veer Surendra Sai Nagar, Saileshri Vihar, Niladri Vihar, Chandrasekharpur, Jayadev Vihar and many areas on the outskirts. The city management group has identified a five-acre plot for the project.

The municipal commissioner said: “The dispensaries affiliated with the corporation hospital at Kapilaprasad, Gada Gopinath Prasad Colony, Brahmeswar Patna and Bharatpur will also be upgraded under the new health care delivery plan. We have zeroed in on Gadakana, as the region is near the fastest growing urban epicentre and people have no access to any major government-run health care delivery institutions there.”

Madan Jena, councillor of ward no. 7, is happy that BMC could sign the MoU four days after the council’s nod. “Gadakana remains cut off from the main city and there is not a single major hospital run by the government there, although there are many private health care institutions. The establishment of a major hospital will help the needy a lot,” Jena said.

Kulamani Behera, a resident of Sailashree Vihar, said: “Even today, there is not a single health care institution here, although it is thickly populated and many real-estate development sites and educational institutions are coming up. The civic authorities should have thought of a hospital plan much earlier.”

Surya Das of Old Town was sceptical about the hospital plan. “The civic authorities have wasted nearly three years by promising a renovation plan for the existing corporation hospital near Lingaraj temple with sponsorship from an industrial house. It never happened. Will the 250-bed hospital in Gadakana see the light of day?”