Health facility: RIUKT construction project stalled due to paucity of funds

RAWALPINDI: The completion of Rawalpindi Institute of Urology and Kidney Transplant (RIUKT) project seems to have run into difficulties due to shortage of funds although 85 per cent construction work over the project.

The Rs.2.25 billion health project, inaugurated in August 2012 at Shamsabad was supposed to be ready by January 2014 but due to previous government policy to construct Rawalpindi-Islamabad metro bus project in 2014 and then the Orange train in Lahore, the provincial government had stopped the funds for the project resulting increased its construction costs.

When contacted, RIKUT Medical Superintendent Dr Nasir Mehmood speaking to the media  said that if government provides Rs 100 million at the earliest the modern facility of emergency, dialysis and OPD could become functional within two months.

He hoped that funds would be released by the provincial government in January 2019 and residents will be able to avail the latest health faculties of liver and stomach related diseases in March 2019. He said the secretary health has asked the concerned departments to speed up the work and make it a state-of-the-art hospital.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 10^th, 2018.