charges for services, its income has not increased. The health facility earns around Rs 100 million from services every year, whereas the expense of the health facility is around Rs 500 million a year, said Gautam. “As we could not run the hospital with the allocated budget and internal income, we have spent Rs 280 million collected in the employee’s welfare fund, gratuity fund, health treatment fund, among others for the past two years,” said Gautam. According to him, they have run out of budget and failed to pay two months’ salary to employees. They are also yet to clear all the bills of various items purchased in the past one year. According to him, the health facility has not received any grant from the government except from the fund. “We have been facing acute budget crunch as the state doesn’t support us saying it is an autonomous institute,” he lamented. Dr Chin Kumar Pun, executive director of the health facility, said they have not been able to purchase necessary instruments due to budget crunch. A CT scan machine, which was damaged three months ago, is yet to be repaired due to financial crunch. Similarly, a mammogram, which was damaged five years ago, has not been repaired yet. This machine detects breast cancer in women.
