Rs 400-cr hospital to give fillip to Gurdaspur economy: Experts

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, December 7

Hundreds of jobs will be generated by the proposed Rs 400-crore government medical college and super speciality hospital following which the economy of this district is expected to get a big boost.

Experts opine that the sagging hotel and transport industry will be among the major beneficiaries. Hoteliers were virtually on their knees after the construction of the Amritsar-Pathankot bypass due to which traffic started bypassing the city, a development which brought down occupancy rates to an abysmal 5-10 per cent.

Residents said the venture was the need of the hour after the 100-bedded civil hospital was shifted to a location 4 km away from the city on the Batala road in 2016 at the behest of former SAD MLA GS Babbehali sparking off protests against him.

The hospital will be established on a 40-acre land owned by the government near the PAU regional station, a kilometre away from the Institute of Hotel Management, Nutrition and Catering, Beant College of Engineering and Technology and the railway station. “The city is in dire need of a state-of-the-art hospital. Patients from Gurdaspur and Pathankot are now referred to faraway places like Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana. The location is ideal as it is just a kilometer away from the National Highway-54 which links J&K and HP to Amritsar. Both the hotel and the transport industry are in for a major revival. The hospital will cater to patients from three states which in turn will give a fillip to the micro-economy of the city,” said real estate dealer Manjit Singh Dala. Real estate rates near the proposed location have already increased with chemist shop and pathological lab owners eyeing the area. After the civil hospital was relocated, chemist shops had reported a huge decrease in their sales.

“The hospital and the Kartarpur Sahib corridor are sure to improve occupancy rates of hotels in the city,” said Romesh Mahajan, president, District Hotel Association. Meanwhile, the government has decided to name the mega project after Guru Nanak.

However, Cabinet Minister and Dera Baba Nanak MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa said the name should be changed as Amritsar already had a government hospital named after the first Sikh Guru. “Just to avoid confusion, the venture should be named as Kartarpur Sahib medical college and hospital,” he added.