HYDERABAD: The Employees’ State Insurance Corporation has finally scrapped the long-pending proposal to upgrade the ESIS dispensary at Goshamahal, clarifying that no 100-bed hospital will be built at the site, as the state government failed to allot the promised land.
The decision came to light in a response sent by ESIC headquarters to a grievance raised by the ESIS Hospital Development Committee in January, accessed by TNIE.
In its reply, ESIC said the dispensary was initially proposed to be upgraded into a 30-bed hospital. However, in November 2015, the then union labour minister Bandaru Dattatreya laid the foundation stone for a 100-bed ESI hospital. The state government had then agreed to transfer an additional 1.76 acres from the Animal Husbandry, Fisheries and Dairy department to ESIC.
The ESIC pointed out that the existing dispensary land measures only 0.84 acres, which is inadequate for a 100-bed hospital. A formal request for additional land was sent to the state government on November 23, 2015. Despite repeated follow-ups, the land allotment was never finalised.
The corporation said it later reviewed the proposal as per ESIC norms, which require no other ESI hospital within a 50-km radius. In August 2023, the Union Labour minister informed the state government that upgradation was not feasible as ESIC Medical College and Hospital, Sanathnagar, and ESIS Hospital, Nacharam, were already functioning within about 44 km of Goshamahal.
With both land acquisition failing and distance norms not being met, the proposal was dropped entirely.
HDC members said while approvals were expedited for a new 100-bed ESI hospital at Shamshabad, the long-standing assurance of a hospital at Goshamahal was ignored.