MARGAO: Health Minister Laxmikant Parsekar on Wednesday inaugurated the long-delayed upgraded Balli Primary health centre, but only the ground floor portion of the health Centre will be available for use for the moment for want of a lift to the first floor.
Given the situation, though the upgraded Primary Health Centre had a provision for 30 beds, only 12 beds will now be accommodated in the new building and the Centre will start full-fledged operations only after completion of work on the lift. “The media will tomorrow highlight that the health minister has inaugurated the ground floor of the health centre for want of a lift to the first floor. We had twice tendered the lift, but there was no bidder. We will now allot the lift work to the GSIDC,” Parsekar said, after inaugurating the half completed primary centre in the presence of Cuncolim MLA, Rajan Naik.
, Quepem MLA Babu Kavlekar, Velim MLA Benjamin D’silva, Health Director Sanjeev Dalvi and others.
The health Minister took pot shots at the previous Congress government for designing the new building without application of mind and without consulting the medical fraternity. “The new building has a provision for an operation theatre on the ground floor and the labour room on the first floor. This cannot happen. I have told the officials to ensure that both the operation theatre and the labour room are located adjacent to each other”, he said.
The Quepem MLA told the media that when the Health Minister had inspected the Balli primary centre under construction in 2012 after the new government came to power, Parsekar had charged the Congress for taking four long years to complete only 90 per cent of the work. “Now, Parsekar’s government has completed over two and half years, but they could still not complete the 10 per cent work and that too of a lift even today”, Kavlekar told the media.
Both Cuncolim MLA Rajan Naik and Velim MLA Benjamin D’Silva also spoke.
