Throwing cold water on West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s plan, Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Sunday made it clear that the All-India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS)-like hospital will be set up at Raiganj in North Dinajpur district.
Mr Azad also complained that the state government had failed to acquire land for the hospital in Raiganj and had tried to shift it to a place near Kolkata. Mr Azad was speaking to the mediapersons at Berhampore tourist lodge.
He was in Berhampore in Murshidabad district to campaign for Congress candidate for Jangipur Lok Sabha bypoll Abhijit Mukherjee.
The Raiganj Congress MP, Deepa Das Munshi, had been persistently fighting to keep the AIIMS-like hospital in Raiganj while Ms Banerjee had coaxed the UPA government to shift it to Kalyani in Nadia district. But now that the Trinamul Congress has withdrawn support from the UPA government, the Centre no longer wants to oblige Ms Banerjee.
It maybe recalled that on September 15, Sudip Bandyopadhyay who was then the Union minister of state for health and family welfare had said: “The Union government will set up a medical institute on the lines of AIIMS at Kalyani. It is a suitable place near Kolkata and we have already acquired land for it.”
His announcement had come only a fortnight after chief minister Mamata Banerjee had declared that she would not forcibly acquire land for an AIIMS-type hospital at Raiganj in North Bengal.