Visakhapatnam: The ESIC Hospital is likely to move to a new building in Arilova Colony near Health City to provide medical services to the working community. With the present hospital building at Scindia junction near Malkapuram being in a dilapidated condition, the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) has been looking for a private building for two years.
According to a reliable source, the ESIC issued tenders four times following which Kumar Hospitals emerged as the lowest bidder (L1) in the fourth round of tendering process. The hospital will soon start its operations from the 1.65 lakh sft building at the backside of Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS).
It may take another 6-7 months for the builders to hand over the new building which has been taken on lease for a period of five years at a rent of Rs 54-55 per sft a month, the source said. Asked about the land allotted for building the ESIC Hospital at Sheelanagar, the source said that the ESIC has received the land from the Government of Andhra Pradesh free of cost. Tenders for construction of the building will be called after necessary formalities from the state government.
Initially, a 300-bed hospital was proposed to be built over a 7-acre land at Sheelanagar. Later, Chief Minister N. Chandraba-bu Naidu desired to make it a 500-bed hospital and given in-principal approval on stage for additional 2-acre land at the same location. The then Union labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya had also laid a foundati-on stone for the new hospital building in mid-2016. However, CITU sta-te president Ch. Narasin-ga Rao had recently announced that the ESIC was not in a position to pay '50-80 crore for the land proposed by the Chief Minister and it withdrew its proposal to purchase the land from the state government.
The ESIC chief engineer Sudip Dutta has confirmed that the AP government has provided land free of cost, without giving details. The mails sent to ESIC director general Raj Kumar went unanswered
