RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Institute of Urology will take two more years to complete as the Punjab government has decided to release the remaining Rs1.4 billion for the project till 2018-19 after allocating Rs200 million for the hospital in the next fiscal year.

Officials from the health department, however, say the cost of the project will increase with time.

“The cost of the project increased last year when the Punjab Planning Commission had to approve a revised PC-1 for it,” a senior health department official said.

The urology institute, which is being built on 96 kanals of land and will have the capacity for 400 beds, was started in 2012 and was expected to be completed by 2014.

However, delays in funding have in turn delayed the project.

Health dept officials claim lack of funds caused by 20pc cut in all development schemes after announcement of Orange Line

“The priorities of the Punjab government changed in 2014 and it diverted all development funds to the metro bus project. Due to this the cost of the urology institute also changed,” the official said.

He said that under the Punjab Annual Development Programme, the provincial government has allocated Rs200 million for the hospital in the fiscal year 2016-17, Rs400 million will be spent in 2017-18 and Rs1 billion will be allocated for the project in 2018-19.

The health department had requested the government to complete the construction of the hospital on a priority basis, he said, and that the government had replied that because it was facing a shortage of funds, the money will be spent on important projects.

He added that due to the construction of the Orange Line in Lahore, the Punjab government had imposed a 20pc cut on all districts and development funds.

“The cut was first imposed on development schemes, but in the new budget, the cut will also be imposed on the expenditures of government offices, arguing that these were austerity measures,” he said.

The project will take two more years to complete, he said, adding that the contractor has stopped construction work, saying he wanted the amount owned to him in the previous year. The contractor has claimed he spent Rs500 million of his money on the project, the official said.

“The procurement of machinery, including those for dialysis and kidney transplants will start in the next fiscal year and Rs1billion will be allocated for this purpose. But the prices for the machines will change in two years time and the government will have to revise the PC-1 for the third time,” he said.

When asked, former PML-N MNA Hanif Abbasi said the project will be completed as soon as possible.

“The chief minister has promised that the project will be completed soon and that additional funds will be released at the end of the fiscal year,” he said.

The provincial government was focusing on the quality of the hospital and did not want to construct a building in haste, he said.

“A state of the art hospital will provide the latest facilities and kidney transplants and people from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir will also benefit from the hospital,” he said.

“PML-N leaders will inaugurate the hospital at the time of the next general elections,” said PTI MPA Arif Abbasi.

The PTI leader said the PML-N led government had focused more on the development of Lahore and not on health care facilities in 36 districts of the province.

“All the funds were diverted to the Orange Line and the patients and hospitals [in the rest of the province] were left unattended,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2016