Odisha HRD

ESIC to establish two ESI medical colleges in Odisha? One in Bhubaneswar and another in Rourkela.

Following is from Samaja:

Following is from Sambada:

Following is from Dharitri:

1 comment February 25th, 2012

ESIC Medical College and Hospital (Bhubaneswar) design from Mukesh and Associates

The following pictures are from http://mukeshassociates.com/bhubaneswar-hospital.html.

Front View

Close up of the main building 

A ward with nurse station

Administration Block

View from portico

January 5th, 2012

High Court to resolve the ESIC medical college location issue; Kudos to the persistent efforts by the Rourkela action committee; Join them via rourkelacity.com to further the development of Rourkela

Following is from a report in ibnlive.com.

The Orissa High Court has directed the state government, union and the authorities of the ESIC to clarify their stand on the establishment of an ESIC Medical College at its existing hospital in Orissa.Acting on a writ petition, the HC bench comprising Chief Justice V Gopal Gowda and Justice B N Mohapatra has given two weeks time to the parties to submit their replies on the issue.The action committee of Rourkela had filed the writ petition in the High Court as the state government alloted the land.The action committee has been demanding establishment of the ESIC medical college here stating that out of 2.70 lakh Insured Persons (IPs) in the state 65 per cent were from tribal dominated districts of Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar and Sambalpur.

This should resolve the ESIC medical college location issue. So far the central government and the state government have never been able to give a proper answer to the logic behind choosing Bhubaneswar as the location, despite indications that more insured people will be served if it was located in Rourkela.

Kudos to the people who have persisted on this for more than 2 years. Their latest efforts are chronicled in http://www.rourkelacity.com. BPUT is next on their agenda. Rightly so, as very little progress has been made on BPUT front.  I hope others interested in the development of Rourkela will join http://www.rourkelacity.com and actively help in the efforts being organized there.

This can also serve as a guide to people from other areas on how to organize themselves and help and watchout for the development of areas of their interest.

3 comments July 30th, 2011

ESI Corporation is eying the private colleges to increase its IPs (insured persons); that may be the reason it instists that its medical college in Odisha be in the Bhubaneswar area

Following is from the page http://esic.nic.in/coverage.htm.

Applicability
Under Section 2(12) The Act is applicable to the factories employing 10 or more persons irrespective of whether power is used in the process of manufacturing or not.

Under Section 1(5) of the Act, the Scheme has been extended to shops, hotels, restaurants, cinemas including preview theatre, road motor transport undertakings and newspaper establishment employing 20 or more persons.

Further, u/s 1(5) of the Act, the Scheme has been extended to Private Medical and Educational Institutions employing 20 or more persons in certain States .

Following is from a report in Times of India.

All educational institutions, including public, private, aided or those run by individuals, trusts and societies, and employing 20 or more persons should pay Employees State Insurance (ESI) premium for their employees, the Madras high court has ruled.

Justice K Chandru, dismissing a batch of writ petitions against the legality of a notification issued by the labour department of the Union territory of Puducherry, said: "Any establishment can be validly notified by the appropriate government to be covered by the provisions of the ESI Act."

The writ petitions were filed after the lieutenant-governor of the Union territory of Puducherry issued a notification mandating that educational institutions including public, private, aided or partially aided employees, run by individuals, trusts and societies, would be covered by the ESI Act if they employed 20 or more persons in their organisations on any day of the preceding 12 months.

Consequently, ESI sent notices to the organisations and directed them to cover their employees under the act. The ESI also followed it up with show-cause notices, and later sent prosecution notices threatening to levy damages under Section 85-B of the ESI Act. While some of the institutions paid up the amount, many of them filed writ petitions noting that the territorial administration lacked the legislative sanction to issue the notification as the Centre also could come out with such notifications.

It seems at this time Odisha government has not required private medical and education institutions be covered by ESI.  But perhaps ESI would like that and therefore it is trying to put up its medical college in Bhubaneswar, where 60-70% of the state’s private colleges (engineering, management, etc.) are.

The following ad came in today’s Dharitri.

July 20th, 2011

PIB: ESI Hospitals and medical colleges that have been sanctioned

Following is from PIB dated 16th March 2011.

The ESI Corporation has laid down norms for setting up of ESI hospitals. The ESI hospitals are sanctioned based on the request of the State Government and taking into consideration the requirement and norms laid down by the ESI Corporation. The ESI Corporation does not receive any budgetary support and, therefore, does not follow the Five Year Plan targets. It sets its own targets. The details of the ESI hospitals, as approved by the ESI Corporation, under construction are as under:

1. Baddi, Himachal Pradesh

2. Bhiwadi, Rajasthan

3. Manesar, Haryana

4. Peenya, Karnataka

5. Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu

6. Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

Hospitals sanctioned and proposed to be set up, as approved by the ESI Corporation, are as under:

1. Haridwar, Uttrakhand

2. Udham Singh Nagar, Uttrakhand

3. Ankleshwar, Gujarat

4. Udaipur, Rajasthan

5. Tirupur, Tamil Nadu

6. Lalru, SAS Nagar, Punjab

7. Angul, Orissa

8. Duburi, Jajpur District Orissa

9. Bhilai, Chhattisgarh

10. Korba, Chhattisgarh

Details of Medical Education Projects sanctioned (State-wise) are given as under:

At present, no project has been implemented under Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

This information was given by Shri Mallikarjun Kharge, Minister for Labour and Employment in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today.

YSK: PM

March 17th, 2011

Update on ESI Medical Colleges; locations fixed so far

The following is from a PIB dated 9th March 2011.

In order to bring more and more workers under coverage of ESI Scheme in the country, the ESI Corporation has taken the following steps;

The Corporation prepares a phased programme for implementing the scheme in new areas every year in consultation with the State Governments. The position of implementation/extension of ESI Scheme in new areas during the last 3 years is given below:-

The wage ceiling for coverage of employees under the Act has been enhanced from Rs.10,000/- p.m. to Rs.15,000/- p.m. w.e.f. 01-05-2010.

A uniform threshold of 10 or more persons for coverage of factories has been prescribed vide ESI (Amendment) Act, 2010.

State Governments have been requested to lower the threshold for coverage of shops and other establishments from 20 persons to 10 or more persons under the powers conferred upon them under Section.1(5) of the Act. Already the State Governments of Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan and West Bengal have issued notifications in this regard.

The steps taken by the Corporation to make the scheme more favourable are as follows:

* Improving work environment and facilities for Insured Persons (IPs) visiting ESIC Offices.

* Payment of Long term benefits through Electronic Clearing Scheme (ECS).

* Rates of cash benefits have been enhanced and entitlements have been enlarged.

* Cashless provision of super specialty services through network hospitals.

* Modernisation and up gradation of medical infrastructure.

* Issue of smart cards called ‘Pehchan’ and networking of all ESI institutions for easy access.

To overcome the shortage of doctors in hospitals, filling up of vacant posts is being done on an ongoing basis. To overcome the shortage of doctors, including specialists in the long run and to improve the quality of medical care, the ESI Corporation has started various Medical Education Projects.

The ESI Corporation proposes to set up 18 Medical Colleges in the country in phases. The details are as under.

This information was given by Shri Mallikarjun Kharge, Minister for Labour and Employment in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha today/

YSK: PM

March 9th, 2011

Construction initiated for the ESI Medical College in Bhubaneswar; Dental and nursing college to be in Rourkela

Following is from a report in Orissadiary.com.

The Construction work of ESI Medical College and Hospital has been started in the Jaganathpur village near Chandaka Institute of mathematics. Labour and Employment Minister Puspendra Singh Deo told the mediapersons here on Sunday that the ESI Medical College will be constructed in 25 Acres of land in an expenditures of tune of Rs 600 Crores.

About 200 students will be admitted in this medical College. The Doctors will be appointed by the ESI Medical of the Centre Government. But 42.57 % persons will be appointed in this Medical College and Hospital. Besides, the ESI will also set up Dental and Nursing college in Rourkela.

September 27th, 2010

Nine Medical Trusts interested in medical colleges in Odisha: three approved

5 comments July 4th, 2010

IIT act to be ammended to include medicine; Despite objections by the Health Ministry IIT Kharagpur to start medical school in collaboration with Indian Railways

Following is an excerpt from a report in Times of India.

In a written reply in Lok Sabha on Wednesday, minister of state for HRD D Purandeshwari said the ministry has decided to amend the IIT Act, the law that governs IITs, to include medical science. The health ministry had said that IITs should not be allowed to start conventional courses in medicine.

The amendment, Purandeshwari said, would help IITs to offer programmes bringing together the diverse disciplines of medicine and engineering. Referring to the health ministry’s objection, she said, "However, appreciating the fact that the modern trends in medical education and research in technology and medicine in all the developed and most of the developing countries are seen hand-in-hand, the government proposes to incorporate `medicine’ in the IIT Act."

Purandeswari said the programme would bring the two important disciplines of medicine and engineering together.

… IIT Kharagpur has come up with a concrete proposal in this regard and plans to start a medical college in collaboration with Indian Railways. At a meeting of experts in the health ministry in February this year, it was observed that IITs should start courses on health information technology, biomedical engineering and e-health rather than running a hospital or starting MBBS courses.

There are several lessons that Odisha can draw from this.

• As Purna Mishra suggested in a comment, VSSUT and the VSS Medical College in Burla should combine to form a single university.
• NIT Rourkela and IIT Bhubaneswar should consider adding a medical college as part of the institute; NIT could include the proposed ESI medical college and IIT could include the proposed Railways medical college.

April 22nd, 2010

What are the exact districtwise IP numbers in Odisha? MP Pyari Mohapatra asks question on ESIC medical college in the Rajya Sabha.

MP Pyari Mohapatra’s question is in page 21 Q 1456 of http://164.100.47.5/EDAILYQUESTIONS/sessionno/219/830RS.pdf. See below for the question and the answer.

The above Q&A is referred to in the Pioneer report http://dailypioneer.com/246034/ESIC-issue-Labour-Minister-fumbles-at-Rourkela-meet.html. From the answer it is not clear what the IP situation really is. While the Bhubaneswar area may have very substantial number of IPs, there could still be more in the Rourkela area and the ESIC medical college should then be established in Rourkela. So saying "very substantial" is not meaningful.  I could not find the annexure mentioned in the Rajya Sabha answer.

If someone has the real data, please publish it so that any manipulation will become clear.

(Note: The discussion in this thread will be restricted to exact IP numbers in Odisha and nothing else.)

10 comments April 1st, 2010

Rourkelacity.com: CM favorable towards ESIC Medical College in Rourkela

Following is an excerpt from http://www.rourkelacity.com/top-news/naveen-patnaik-assured-and-indicates-green-signal-for-esic-medical-college-at-rourkela/.

Today under the leadership of Dr. Prafulla Majhi ( MLA , Talsara Constituency, Sundargarh ) about 6 MLAs from Sundargarh, Jharsuguda, Keonjhar met the Chief Minister Shri Naveen Patnaik and appraised him about the discontent among the civil society and people at Rourkela and Sundargarh on the on going issue of locating the ESIC Medical College. After giving a calm hearing to the MLAs , Naveen Patnaik said, being ESIC Medical College is a central Govt. project, the State Govt. doesn’t have any problem if the ESIC Corporation decides this to be at Rourkela. The state will facilitate accordingly and allocate the land. He further assured about checking the status of the project and do his best for Rourkela and its people. At the same time 20 representatives of people from the above districts, also handed over a memorandum for setting up ESIC Medical College and Hospital at Rourkela to the Chief Minister which he gladly accepted.

I hope this solves all the technical issues and the ESIC hospital and medical college is quickly established in Rourkela.

Assuming the above happens Rourkela would have a very good momentum towards becoming a Tier II city in India. Some of the other things that are happening in parallel are: (i) Faster progress with respect to BPUT (ii) Good progress on Hi-Tech Medical college (iii) Proposal for a metropolitan university in Rourkela and much more. In terms of knowledge infrastructure Rourkela would then have:

• One institute of National importance: NIT
• Two Universities: BPUT and Metropolitan University
• Two medical Colleges: Hi-Tech and ESI
• Two existing engineering colleges (Padmanava and Purushottam) and one more in pipeline (Rourkela Institute of Technology)
• Good management institutes in RIMS Rourkela and IIPM Kansbahal.

I hope now Rourkela will have the momentum and its people will take their own initiatives so that steps such as the ones we earlier mentioned in  https://www.orissalinks.com/archives/3480 will be taken and  Rourkela will march towards becoming a Tier II city of India.

Among people driven initiatives the first one to be taken is to push SAIL to create a medical college and an engineering college in Rourkela and approaching top institutions in Odisha and India to open a campus in Rourkela.

5 comments March 13th, 2010

Bhubaneswar decided as the ESIC medical college location in Odisha: Rajya Sabha answer

March 7th, 2010

Progress on ESIC medical college – Expected to be operational in 2012: Samaja

February 14th, 2010

Some ESIC Medical College related correspondences between Bhubaneswar and Delhi

February 14th, 2010

Labor minister Pushpendra Singh Deo appeals on ESIC Medical College

Following is from Samaja.

This creates an interesting situation. On one hand Rourkela is really the right location for the ESIC Medical college; but on the other hand changing of an already announced location can be dangerous in that it opens up other attempts to change other locations. No announcement of a location will be safe as  people from other aspiring areas will keep trying to change it and some of that may result in instability and chaos.

While ESIC medical college case is a very very special case,  and we tried to make that case, it seems to be very difficult to make people understand that. Even we have failed in that in these pages.

That may be one of the reasons Orissa government is being stubborn on the ESIC Medical college case.

As the Telangana case illustrates how one decision can have snowball effect on the rest of the country, unless the ESIC case is carefully handled (by all sides) it can create chaos across the state.

December 27th, 2009

RTI response on ESIC Medical College in Orissa

On 22nd October 2009 Prashant babu had filed an RTI with the following questions:

1. What are the reasons for choosing Bhubaneshwar, Odisha as the location for ESIC Medical College and Hospital, when Rourkela and its nearby areas are having the largest number of ESIC Insured Persons (ESIC Employees)?
2. On what ground Bolangir, Odisha was not considered as a location for the ESIC Medical College and Hospital?
3. Whether Rourkela as a location for ESIC Medical College proposed by Govt. of Odisha? If so please specify the date of such porposal? Who had sent the proposal (Name of the person/officer)?
4. If Rourkela was proposed, then on what ground it was not considered by ESIC for setting up the Medical College and Hospital?

He has now received the response. They are as follows:

1. Govt. of Orissa has offered 25 acres of land at Bhubaneshwar for setting up medical college by ESI Corporation.
2. There was no such proposal for consideration.
3. Govt. of Orissa has not proposed Rourkela as a location for ESIC medical college.
4. Not applicable. 

Different people are interpreting this different ways. My interpretation is as follows: 

• It is clear now that Orissa government plays a crucial role in deciding on the location of the ESIC medical college. The center may still say yes or no to a proposed location but it does not seem to have the power to propose a location on its own. This means the CM needs to be convinced. (That is why it was a big step to get the hint that the CM is now aware of the issue. However, it remains to be seen how accurate that information is.)
• Newspaper reports can not be trusted completely. From first hand experience I know that if there is a paper about X in the desk of a secretary some news papers have printed it as Orissa government has a proposal for X. There have been times where an email I sent to the government, which happen to lie in the desk of a secretary, has later appeared in the news papers as an Orissa government proposal whereas in reality my email printout probably went to some file (at best) or the dust bin. So my analysis is that somebody in Orissa government mentioned the name Balangir in the ESIC medical college context and it probably never made it out of the Orissa government; but regardless the newspapers printed about it. Its also possible that somebody on purpose gave wrong or misleading information to the media.

In any case, Prashant babu desreves thanks for using the RTI mechanism to get these answers. Now it is clear where the buck stops on this matter (the CM) and where the efforts should be concentrated on (the CM).  With the reluctance of the Rourkela MLA and the Labor Minister to bring this issue to the CM, some other way to access the CM and convince him about Rourkela needs to be found.

3 comments December 14th, 2009