Justifying his charge that the Union Health Ministry and Union Ministers have been continuously neglecting Tamil Nadu’s interests, Madurai MP Su. Venkatesan on Saturday said that the Centre had come out with the “same old stock answers,” to his queries on the construction of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Madurai.
In a statement, the MP said that he had posed a series of queries to the Ministry with regard to the Madurai AIIMS during the Parliamentary session in August. However, the Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Bharati Pravin Pawar, had, in a response on September 23, given the same answers given previously. “There is nothing new in the letter written to me by the Minister... I strongly condemn the attitude of the Centre shown towards Tamil Nadu in this regard,” he added.
The most important question raised by the MP was the reasons for the undue delay in commencement of civil work for the construction of the AIIMS. However, the response given, he claimed, was irrelevant. “The government, has announced setting up AIIMS in Madurai in 2015-16. Along with six other AIIMS, Madurai was also one among them. In 2019, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi had laid the foundation stone... “ the letter said in response to his query.
Similarly, to another query that the AIIMS construction should have been completed by September 2022, the Minister’s response was that the Union government had approved the establishment of the AIIMS at Thoppur in Madurai and the revised loan agreement for ₹1977.80 crore with JICA was signed in March 2021. The process for administrative and expenditure sanction for increased cost has been completed, the letter stated.
To the MP’s query on whe the civil work would commence, the Minister has said that the Ministry is taking all possible steps to expedite the project as per given timelines. Mr Venkatesan said appealed to the Union government to stop neglecting Tamil Nadu, especially in the execution of welfare projects that could benefit the general public.
