Commissioning of RIU may take more than 3 months

Rawalpindi: Secretary Specialised Healthcare & Medical Education Department Saqib Zafar visited the under-construction Rawalpindi Institute of Urology (RIU) here on Monday however he was unable to tell how much more time it would take to make RIU operational.

Vice Chancellor Rawalpindi Medical University Professor Mohammad Umar, Medical Superintendent Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology Dr. Shuaib Khan and MS RIU Dr. Nasir Mehmood who has additional charge of MS Holy Family Hospital accompanied the Secretary SH&ME department, government of Punjab who has to attend a meeting at the PM office regarding commissioning of RIU. The Executive Engineer Building Department was also present at the RIU during the secretary’s visit.

We have informed Saqib Zafar that we need rupees 530 million to make outpatients department, emergency department and dialysis unit functional at the RIU in three months, said Dr. Nasir while talking to ‘The News’ on Monday.

He said the secretary is going to attend a meeting at the PM office in which progress of work at the RIU would be discussed. The secretary visited RIU and took briefing from all concerned officials on completion of work and functioning of the institute, he said.

He added the building department needs Rs300 million to finalise its working while Rs230 million is required to make OPD, emergency department and dialysis unit operational. When asked, he said the secretary SH&ME Department has not given any date about release of funds required for commissioning of the institute.

It is worth mentioning here that the PML-N central leader Muhammad Hanif Abbasi had stated in a press briefing on April 21 last year, in 2018 that if there had been no restriction on release of funds being provided for completion of under-construction RIU, the institute would have been made operational within April 2018.

He had also claimed that an amount of Rs500 million was required for the completion of RIU of which an amount of Rs236 million was about to release but it was stopped after orders from Election Commission of Pakistan. In 2018, the PML-N government was planning to inaugurate commissioning of outpatients department of RIU on April 25 and emergency department of the institute on April 30 but the government had to stop the construction work after stopping of funds.