Jamshedpur: Hurdles in land acquisition is proving to be the bane of the Roman Catholic Church keen to set up a state-of-the-art engineering and a law college for Jharkhand.
Cardinal Telesphore P. Toppo, who was in Jamshedpur on Tuesday to preside over a function to mark the sacerdotal (priesthood) golden jubilee of Father Camille Ratnakar Prabhu, the director of Catholic Charities and Samekit Jan Vikas Kendra, reiterated his disappointment to The Telegraph at the slow progress of the two projects.
“Proposals for an engineering and law colleges were submitted to the government last year, but not much happened due to land acquisition hurdles,” the cardinal said on the sidelines of the function held at St Joseph’s Cathedral at Golmuri and attended by as many as 12 Bishops and 95 Fathers from across the country.
Later, a felicitation ceremony and cultural programme was also organised for Father Prabhu at St Joseph’s Welfare Centre on the cathedral’s premises, Telegraph reported.
The cardinal said he was, however, hopeful the state government, under the leadership of Raghubar Das, would help the church establish the higher education centre, which would benefit the tribal populace. “We are trying at our own level for adequate land to accommodate campus of an engineering and a law college but unfortunately we have not achieved much success,” he said.
Cardinal Toppo said that pooling in funds for the projects would not be a problem. “We are not crorepatis. But, we have a firm belief that any project meant for the uplift of the poor and marginalised cannot be thwarted for want of resources. It is through this belief that we managed to start a state-of-the art medical college and hospital at Mandar (around 30km from Ranchi) in November last year,” he explained.
At Mandar, it all fell into place in November 2015 when the 68-year-old Holy Family Hospital was taken over by Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI), the highest policy-making body of the Roman Catholic Church in India, to set up the hospital. The proposed medical college and hospital is being called Constant Lievens Academy of Health Sciences and Hospital after the Belgian missionary who arrived in Ranchi in 1885 and took up the cause of tribals who were being exploited by landlords.
“The CBCI general body approved the project at a meeting in XLRI-Jamshedpur in 2008, but it took us more than seven years to find land as several other plots selected by us in Khunti and other parts of the state met with opposition. Finally, we took up the Mandar hospital with contribution from Ranchi diocese,” the cardinal said.
The hospital now has 150 beds. But, the first phase to convert it to a 300-bed facility would be completed in April, he said, adding that it would finally be converted into a 500-bed hospital in the next phase.