Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday virtually inaugurated the second campus of Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI) in West Bengal's Kolkata.
"The second campus of CNCI has been built in line with the Prime Minister's vision to expand and upgrade the health facilities in all parts of the country. CNCI was facing a heavy load of cancer patients and a need for expansion was being felt for some time. This need will be fulfilled through the second campus," a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office said.
The second campus of CNCI has been built at a cost of over Rs 530 crore, out of which around Rs 400 crores have been provided by the Union government and the rest by the West Bengal government, in the ratio of 75:25. The campus is a 460 bedded comprehensive cancer centre unit with cutting-edge infrastructure for cancer diagnosis, staging, treatment, and care.
The campus is equipped with modern facilities like Nuclear Medicine (PET), 3.0 Tesla MRI, 128 slice CT scanner, Radionuclide therapy unit, endoscopy suite, modern brachytherapy units, etc. The campus will also work as an advanced cancer research facility and will provide comprehensive care to cancer patients especially those from Eastern and North-Eastern parts of the country.
Dedicating to the nation the cancer care centre, PM Modi told the gathering that India has reached the "historic milestone" of administering 150 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccine during the day.
"Today, over 90 per cent of India's adult population has already got the first dose of Covid vaccine. This reflects the country's sense of self-confidence, self-dependence and self-pride for an achievement that is difficult for even the developed and rich nations," he asserted.
He renewed his government's commitment to bridging the demand-supply gap in the health sector with regard to the availability of doctors and modern infrastructure. "Over 2.60 crore people, including 17 lakh cancer patients, have benefited from Ayushman Bharat scheme so far," he said.
Meanwhile, during the function, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee took a swipe at PM Modi, saying that the project he was supposed to inaugurate was actually inaugurated by the state government a long time ago.
"I have come to the programme because of the Prime Minister. Because Pradhan Mantri ji is virtually inaugurating this project," NDTV quoted the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo as saying. She added the Health Minister had telephoned her twice
"I'd like to inform him (PM) that we have inaugurated the programme first. How did we do it? When Covid started and we needed a Covid centre, I went there one day. The Rajarhat second campus of Chittaranjan Hospital. I saw it was linked to the state government and we inaugurated it," the CM added.
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(With ANI and PTI inputs)
