The Balasore district headquarters hospital is yet to get a trauma centre. Telegraph picture

Balasore, Aug. 10: Delay in building a trauma centre in the district headquarters hospital has caused discontentment among people here.

Although chief minister Naveen Patnaik laid the foundation stone of the trauma centre on January 14 last year, the groundwork is yet to take off. The Centre had sanctioned the project for providing emergency treatment facilities to accident victims.

“The trauma centre had received the Centre’s nod under the Golden Quadrilateral project. However, the project is yet to take off and the funds have been lying unspent with the hospital administration for over three years,” said former minister and president of the Senior Citizens’ Forum Maheswar Bag.

“It appears that the project is not making progress because of the lack of interest in the authorities concerned. The unit would prove a boon for patients who come here from distant places, including the neighbouring districts of north Orissa,” he said.

An amount of Rs 80 lakh was released as first instalment for implementation of the centrally sponsored scheme in May 2008. Subsequently, another Rs 1 crore was sanctioned out of the National Rural Health Mission funds.

The hospital authorities, however, attributed changes in the initial plan for the delay in project execution. “The delay has been due to alternation in the initial plan and approval of a fresh plan,” said district project manager Byamokesh Dash.

“On completion of all administrative procedures, we have assigned the construction to the rural development department and set aside Rs 1.8 crore for the purpose nearly one month ago,” said the chief district medical officer.

“On receiving the request from the district headquarters hospital authorities for building the trauma centre, we have forwarded the matter to the superintendent engineer for bidding,” said Surendra Panda, executive engineer of the rural development department (Balasore-I division).

The total project cost has been estimated at Rs 9.65 crore. The Centre will release the balance amount in phases after monitoring the progress.

However, apart from the project cost, the expenditure on salary payment, training and maintenance of equipment would be borne by the state government.