RAWALPINDI: With the tenure of the PML-N government ending on May 31, work on several hospital projects is still incomplete, years after they were started.

The Mother and Child Hospital on Asghar Mall was started on April 8, 2005 by then prime minister Shaukat Aziz and then railways minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.

The building is still incomplete as the PML-N government in Punjab did not allocate any funds for it in its two tenures from 2008 to 2018.

The project was to include a 400-bed hospital equipped with modern facilities which was to be made functional in 2008. The federal government was to pay half the funds and the other half were to be paid by the Punjab government.

A nursing school was also to be established at the hospital as well. The government was also to establish a chest diseases centre to deal with breast cancer and TB cases.

Successive provincial govts have not allocated funds for the projects

In April this year, the government allocated Rs5 billion for the project but work could not be launched in the limited time so it was deferred to the next fiscal year. The next government will now decide if it will complete the project.

The Mother and Child Hospital at Committee Chowk, which was inaugurated by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, is also still incomplete. Saying it has insufficient funds for the project, the Punjab Health Department has turned the incomplete building into a filter clinic for the Benazir Bhutto Hospital (BBH).

A senior official of the Punjab Health Department told Dawn that the next government will decide if the project is to be completed or if will be continued to be used as a filter clinic.

He said expecting mothers will get treatment here before formally going to BBH, but this does not serve the purpose of the building as the land was allocated for a separate hospital.

The third incomplete hospital is the Rawalpindi Institute of Urology. The Institute of Urology and Kidney Transplant on Murree Road is still incomplete and the health department says the cost of the project will increase further if it is not completed by the end of 2018.

The project was started in 2012 at the cost of Rs2 billion, but slow work has increased the cost to Rs3.4 billion.

The Punjab government had acquired 96 kanals of land in 2010-11from the Punjab Agriculture Department and shifted its offices near Rawat. A senior officer of the health department said that the government wanted to complete the 250-bed hospital before its tenure ended but the contractors had not been able to complete the work.

He said the construction work was almost complete and the water supply and sewerage lines had been laid. The hospital needed equipment and recruitments to be made functional.

When asked, Awami Muslim League President Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the PML-N government did not spend money on health and education.

“Residents of Rawalpindi need health facilities and an alternate route to Murree Road to avoid traffic congestion,” he said.

Mr Ahmed alleged that the PML-N government in Punjab gives priority to projects which earn commissions for them.

On the other hand, former PML-N MNA Malik Shakil Awan said the provincial government wants to complete the projects as soon as possible but the Election Commission has banned spending money on new projects from April onwards.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2018