Ferozepur PGI Satellite Center remains a voice from dais

PM Modi to inaugurate health units one each in Punjab and Haryana on Aug 24

Ferozepur, August 24, 2022:  The PGI Satellite Centre project in Ferozepur has one again missed the train and remained a voice from the dais, when PM Modi is visiting today to inaugurate one each health unit in Haryana and Punjab.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Haryana and Punjab on Wednesday as he is slated to inaugurate and dedicate to the nation two important health initiatives.
Prime Minister will inaugurate Amrita Hospital at Faridabad in Haryana after which he will travel to Mohal and dedicate the ‘Homi Bhabha Cancer Hospital & Research Centre’ to the nation at Mullanpur in New Chandigarh, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar District in Mohali.

The much-hyped PGI satellite centre in Ferozepur hangs fire though it was approved in 2013 by the UPA-II government to boost modernised healthcare facilities in the border region.

Earlier, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to lay the foundation stone of the ₹500-crore PGI satellite centre in Ferozepur on January 5, but the PM had to return due to the farmers’ protest.

Not only this, later on,  home minister Amit Shah, while addressing the locals during the recently held state polls, promised to virtually lay the foundation of this project on Baisakhi, but remained a voice of the dais.

With one or the other reason, since the approval by the UPA government, the fate of the satellite centre hangs in the balance due to the non-finalisation of land following which people are left with no option but to visit Ludhiana, Jalandhar or Amritsar for advanced medical treatment.

In fact, the SAD-BJP government initially gave nod in 2014 to the proposal mooted by the financial commissioner (development) to allot 25-acre gram panchayat land at Wajidpur village to the local horticulture department in exchange for their land to be given for the PGI centre at Malwal village on the Ferozepur-Moga highway, but the proposal could not be materialised.

However, the state authorities transferred the 16-acre land of the ITI ground to the health department, but later the PGI authorities demanded 5.5-acre more land for the construction of houses for doctors and other staff, which was also approved in February 2016, but even then, the construction could not start.

Meanwhile in 2017, with the change of the government, the Congress government again proposed the process to relocate the land at Malwal village to tackle the issue of traffic and parking problems and its adverse effect on the emergency treatment.

Pardeep Dhawan, President, Senior Citizens Forum said, the governments should stop playing politics over the operation of PGI in Ferozepur and getting credit war and immediately inaugurate this project also to provide better health services in the area.