PIMS gets Govt ultimatum: Pay Rs 70 cr or vacate college | The management of the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences, Jalandhar, has failed to deposit the concessionaire fee for the third time, and the government has ordered the college to deposit it or vacate. For the past nine months, the government has been unable to remove the management or recover any funds from the college administration.
The administration owes the government approximately Rs 70 crore. The notice was served, according to sources, by the Additional Chief Secretary for Medical Education and Research.
In June last year, while chairing the 37th governing body meeting of the PIMS society, the CM had termed the financial crunch in the institute a serious concern. He had ordered a probe into the alleged embezzlement of taxpayers’ money along with other lapses that led to the financial crisis in the premier healthcare institute of the Doaba region.
Following that in July, even the Chief Minister had approved the department that if the college management failed to deposit Rs 63 crore, the agreement with the existing management should be cancelled. However, in the nine months, neither contract had been cancelled, nor the fee could be recovered.
The department has said the PIMS management was supposed to pay Rs 63 crore as a fee to the government. It was found that the college management had not paid the annual fee as per the terms and conditions of the agreement since 2016.
Significantly, PIMS was an ambitious project started during the Beant Singh government (1992-97). The project on 55 acres was handed over to a trust being run by SAD leader Surjit Rakhra for ‘peanuts’.
Fee not paid since 2016
- The Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences, Jalandhar, was supposed to pay Rs 63 cr as a fee to the government every year
- It was found that the management of the institue had not paid the annual fee since 2016