Balasore: Congress leader and former Union minister Srikant Jena has accused the Centre of delaying establishment of the satellite centre of the All-India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) in Balasore over "unknown reasons".

Stating that the project was facing a slow death and has been a victim of a larger conspiracy of the Centre, Jena said that the issue would be taken to peoples' court.

"The Congress will take the issue to street. There will be a district-level agitation on January 15. Subsequently, it will be conducted in various blocks," said Jena.

"The AIIMS-Bhubaneswar is conducting a weekly outpatient door (OPD) service in Balasore. But the authorities are not kin to give a full-fledged service as assured. The project is facing a slow and silent death. According to the information I have, the project has been stalled and there is a plan to shift it to elsewhere - around Bhubaneswar. Three financial years have lapsed, but the progress in the issue is nil, except the construction of the boundary wall," said the former Balasore MP, during whose tenure the establishment of the satellite centre was announced.

The AIIMS project in Balasore was announced in February 2014 by the then minister, Gulam Nabi Azad.

The state government gave 25 acres in Balia on the town outskirts of Balasore town for the construction of the AIIMS satellite centre. But after four years, only boundary has been constructed around the proposed site. According to the announcement by Azad, the satellite centre was supposed to have a 350-bed superspecialty hospital as well an international-standard public health school for education as well as research on the communicable diseases. It was supposed to be a unique health care facility in the entire east India.

"Not only Balasore, even the people of the neighbouring districts and states would have been benefited by the hospital. It has been a great deception to the people of north Odisha," said Jena.

Director of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar Gitanjali Batmanabane had last month said that the satellite unit in Balasore was under process.

"The Integrated Test Range (ITR) has extended co-operation for the conduct of outpatient door (OPD) service of the AIIMS centre in Balasore. The OPD is operational till the satellite centre in Balasore comes up," Batmanabane had said. District collector Pramod Das said: "The district administration has provided the required land and the boundary wall has been constructed. Further development is not known."