Pay Rs 70 crore or vacate premises: Medical College gets govt ultimatum

Chandigarh: Issuing a warning to the management of Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), the State Government has asked it to deposit the pending concessionaire fee or vacate the college.

The notice to the college management in this regard has been served by the Additional Chief Secretary of Medical Education and Research.

For the last nine months the matter has been pending and the college management already owes around Rs 70 crore to the government, reports The Tribune.

However, the government could not remove the management and it also failed to recover the money as a concessionaire fee from the management of the college.

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As per the latest media report by The Tribune, back in June 2022, at the 37th governing body meeting of the PIMS Society, the Chief Minister had chaired the meeting. At that time, referring to the financial crunch in the college, the CM had termed it to be a matter of serious concern. 

In fact, the CM had also ordered an investigation into the alleged embezzlement of taxpayers' money along with other lapses to find out why such a premier healthcare institute was facing a financial crisis.

After that, in July last year, the CM had given permission to the department to cancel the agreement with the existing management of the college, if the institute failed paying the deposit of Rs 63 crore. However, even after nine months, the matter still remains unsolved and neither the money could be recovered, nor the contract got cancelled. 

Now the Additional Chief Secretary of Medical Education and Research has issued a notice to the college management and asked it to vacate the college if the management failed paying the concessionaire fee.

It has been pointed out by the department that the management of PIMS was supposed to pay Rs 63 crore fee to the government. Apart from this, the department also found out that the college management had not paid the annual fee according to the terms and conditions of the agreement since 2016.

Tribune adds that the PIMS project had commenced when the Beant Singh government (1992-97) was in power. Built on an area of 55 acres, the project was handed over to a trust run by SAD leader Surjit Rakhra.

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