Land grab under hospital guise: Odisha Revenue Minister in trouble

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Bijyashree Routray

Bhubaneswar, Aug 26: In a major
embarrassment to the Government, Revenue and Disaster Management Minister
Bijyashree Routray on Tuesday admitted that no nursing home is functioning on
the plot, which was allotted for the purpose in his wife’s name at subsidised
rates two decades ago.

Dr Jyoti Routray, wife
of the Minister was among the 44 individuals and organisations who have been
provided plots at a subsidised rates in prime locations in the capital city to
set up either hospitals, nursing homes or cardiac hospitals during 1981-2009, is
found to be a violator.
In the wake of the land
and house allotment scam in the State, the Health Department had ordered an
enquiry to know the status of the plot and purposes. But enquiries revealed
that 13 out of 44 allottees have failed to set up any such healthcare units in
the respective lands while 10 are still coming up.
The General
Administration department had allotted 0.124 acre land to Dr Jyoti Routray in
Kharvelanagar area at the subsidized rate of Rs 61,984 in 1987 for nursing home
purpose.
“My wife is a simple
MBBS doctor and since another nursing home namely Panda Nursing Home is located
near to my wife’s plot and specialists from various fields are coming there,
patients prefer to visit it. Hence, after a few years my wife closed the
nursing home due to heavy loss and now we staying there permanently,” said the
Minister.
During enquiry by the
Directorate of Medical Education and Training (DMET), it was found that only 21
units have come up in the State capital against an allotment of 44 lands made
in between 1985 and 2009.
“We have informed the
Health and GA department about the non-existence of 13 such institutions
against whom lands were allotted to set up healthcare units” informed DMET
Joint Director Dr Umakant Satapathy.

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