Haryana govt hands 600-bed Civil Hospital project to HSIIDC

Gurgaon: The state govt has appointed Haryana State Industrial & Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) as the executing agency for the proposed Civil Hospital.HSIIDC has replaced Central Public Works Department (CPWD), which had been handling the planning and design work of Gurgaon’s long-delayed 600-bed facility.On Thursday, health minister Arti Singh Rao said HSIIDC “will oversee construction” of the Rs 1,054-crore hospital near Police Lines even as officials have been directed to complete the remaining formalities at the earliest. The latest move comes months after the project’s latest design — for a 400-bed hospital with provision for adding 200 more beds in a second phase — reached the final approval stage.Gurgaon has only one major public hospital — Civil Hospital in Sector 10 — which sees, on average, 2,000 patients in its OPD daily. The project is expected to significantly strengthen govt healthcare infrastructure in Gurgaon, where residents have long demanded a larger public hospital to cater to the city’s rapidly growing population.The state earlier instructed CPWD to prepare drawings for the revised 400+200-bed model after years of changes to the project’s scope and design. At present, the land where Civil Hospital will come up has turned into a parking lot. The proposed hospital has undergone multiple revisions since it was first announced.Initially envisioned as an expansion of the existing Civil Lines hospital, the project later shifted to complete demolition and reconstruction. The proposed capacity also fluctuated over the years, moving from 500 beds to a 750-bed facility announced in the 2023-24 state budget before being scaled down to a phased 400-bed hospital with room for future expansion.CPWD prepared designs for a 750-bed, 10-storey hospital by mid-2024, and the state allocated nearly Rs 990 crore for the project. However, the plan was subsequently revised again, delaying construction on the ground.The existing Civil Lines hospital, built in 1967, was facing structural problems for years. Between 2015 and 2016, six roof-collapse incidents were reported in different sections of the hospital, including the maternity ward and ICU, prompting the shifting of critical services to Sector 10 Civil Hospital. PWD declared the building unsafe in both 2015 and 2017 following safety audits.While demolition of the old hospital was approved in 2019, the process took nearly three years because of the pandemic. By late 2022, the hospital building and an adjoining school structure had been razed to clear space for the new facility. While the city’s population has grown over the years, affordable healthcare has not kept pace, and private hospitals remain too expensive for most.