The Chandigarh Administration has accorded administrative approval and expenditure sanction to three infrastructure projects worth a combined Rs 100.65 crore — a 50-bedded Critical Care Hospital at Manimajra (Rs 73.89 crore), an AYUSH Health and Wellness Centre at Sector 28 (Rs 20.88 crore), and an additional classroom block at Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 27-C (Rs 5.88 crore).
The approvals, details of which were exclusively accessed by The Tribune, set in motion the formal construction pipeline for all three facilities.
Why it matters
Chandigarh may be India’s best-planned city, but its healthcare and education infrastructure has struggled to keep pace with a population that has grown far beyond what its original master plan envisaged.
The eastern fringe of the city — Manimajra, Mauli Jagran, and the IT Park corridor — has long been among the most densely populated and medically underserved pockets of the Union Territory. Residents here have historically had no choice but to travel to PGI, GMCH-32, or private hospitals for any critical care need. There was no ICU, no HDU, no modular operation theatre, and no isolation facility anywhere in their immediate vicinity. A cardiac emergency, a road accident, a complicated delivery — all meant a race across town in the hope of reaching a tertiary hospital in time.
The AYUSH gap is equally telling. With a combined population of several lakh across Sectors 26, 28, 29, 30 and Bapu Dham Colony, there was no dedicated government facility offering Ayurvedic, Homoeopathic, Unani, yoga, or Panchakarma services under one roof. Those seeking these treatments either paid out of pocket at private centres or went without.
On the education front, rising enrolment at the Sector 27-C government school had outpaced available classroom space, forcing students into overcrowded conditions that undermined the very learning environment the school was meant to provide.
These three approvals are, at their core, the administration’s acknowledgment that the gap had become untenable.
Who benefits
Manimajra Critical Care Hospital directly serves the residents of Manimajra, Mauli Jagran, and the IT Park area — a combined population running into several lakh, including a large working-class and migrant labour demographic with limited means to access expensive private critical care. The 25-bed ICU/HDU, 26-bed isolation ward, emergency triage, maternity unit, dialysis facility, and diagnostic suite (MRI, CT scan, X-ray) will, for the first time, bring life-saving infrastructure to their doorstep.
AYUSH Wellness Centre at Sector 28 will cater to the Tricity population at large, with immediate catchment across Sectors 26, 28, 29, 30, and Bapu Dham Colony. For the city’s large population that prefers traditional medicine — and for the many who cannot afford private wellness centres — this will be the first comprehensive, government-run AYUSH facility of its kind in Chandigarh.
School Block, Sector 27-C will directly benefit 400 additional students who will now have access to proper classrooms, sanitation facilities, and a barrier-free learning environment — easing the pressure on an institution that had been bursting at its seams.
How it will be built — and who pays
The critical care hospital draws on a dual funding model. The Centre has sanctioned Rs 16.63 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM) — a national programme specifically designed to plug critical care gaps at sub-district and district hospital level. The remaining Rs 57.26 crore will be funded by the UT Health Department under Major Head 4210.
The AYUSH centre and school block will be entirely UT-funded. All three projects have been estimated on CPWD Plinth Area Rates 2025 and will be executed through the standard government construction pipeline — technical sanction within 30 days, e-tendering within 60 days, followed by award of work to a contractor.
The hospital will be built to Basement-plus-Ground-plus-three-floor specifications on a 2.88-acre site at the existing SDH, Manimajra. The AYUSH centre will rise four floors on 0.88 acres in Sector 28. Both buildings incorporate barrier-free design, CCTV surveillance, fire safety systems, and energy-efficient features. The AYUSH centre goes a step further as a Three-Star GRIHA-rated green building with a rooftop solar plant and rainwater harvesting — a first for a government AYUSH facility in Chandigarh.
What happens next
The three projects now enter the formal codal pipeline. Within 30 days, the Engineering wing of the UT must issue a technical sanction on the detailed estimate. The tendering process — through the e-tendering platform — must be completed within the following 60 days. Once a contractor is selected and work is awarded, the clock starts on the construction timelines: 24 months for the critical care hospital, 18 months for the AYUSH centre, and 12 months for the school block.
That means, if everything proceeds on schedule, Chandigarh could have all three facilities operational by mid-to-late 2028.
The critical care hospital will be among the most comprehensively equipped sub-district health facilities in any Union Territory in India — a 50-bed critical care block with modular OTs using SMS (Stainless Steel Modular System) technology, a medical gas pipeline, liquid oxygen system, point-of-care laboratory, blood bank, and a fully equipped emergency department with colour-coded triage zones.
The bigger picture
These three projects do not exist in isolation. They are part of a broader infrastructure push by the Chandigarh Administration — backed, in the case of the hospital, by the Centre’s PM-ABHIM framework — to address decades of deferred investment in public health and education.
For the residents of Manimajra especially, the critical care hospital is not merely a building. It is the difference between life and death for those who, until now, had no safety net when a medical emergency struck.
The Administration has approved it. The money has been arranged. The plans are ready.
Now, Chandigarh must build it — and build it on time.
