Andhra Pradesh agencies sit on Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences’ bills of Rs 60 crore
Hyderabad: Cash-strapped Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences has Rs 60 crore pending with major government agencies that are not paying it on time. The biggest def-aulters are three major government agencies Central Government Health Scheme, Arogyasri Healthcare Trust and APSRTC which owe the hospital a total of Rs 40 crore.
The remaining Rs 20 crore are pending from other state organisations like irrigation department, prisoners cell, police department, Singareni Coal mines and others.
Bills worth Rs 4 crore are lying with the CGHS office and have not been processed and sent to Chennai for a year, claim sources in the department.
A senior financial officer at Nims said, “We make the bills and ensure that there are all attachments as we can’t have a bill going back and forth in government offices. There are times when our staff is stationed in the CGHS office to process bills.”
Similarly, APSRTC patients prefer to come to Nims and the bills are promptly processed but there is very little amount trickling from the department due to its technical problems.
A senior officer at Nims said,“The problem is that the hospital is the last priority for payments in the government departments. They first want to pay their contractors and other debtors.”
Similarly with Aarogyasri, the funds are first released to corporate hospitals and then the other hospitals are looked into. The hospital urgently needs Rs 30 crore to settle its debts.
Director of the hospital, Dr L. Narendranath said, “GHMC is only one aspect but what about our suppliers. The hospital owes Rs 28 crore to them. It needs to be paid as we need our regular supplies on time.”
The revenue of the hospital is Rs 145 crore annually but the expenses pertaining to salaries and diagnostic costs, equipments and maintenance takes away a huge chunk. Dr Narendranath explained, “We are on a no profit basis presently. The loss factor is accounted by the government which gives us Rs 10 crores every year. Our major concern is the rising debts which are not being sorted out and that has to be resolved on an urgent basis.”
