B R Shetty backed out of Udupi hospital due to losses: Health minister

BENGALURU: Health minister K Sudhakar on Wednesday informed the legislative assembly that Abu Dhabi-based Indian billionaire B R Shetty, who underwent substantial losses, has supposedly backed out of running the Koosamma Shambhu Shetty Memorial Haji Abdullah Mother & Child Hospital in Udupi due to the financial losses.
Sudhakar, responding to a calling attention motion moved by Udupi MLA K Raghupati Bhat, said the decision to back out of running the government hospital under a PPP model was conveyed to the government by Shetty in a letter written to the state.
Sudhakar said the Shetty backing out of running the hospital was not intentional and the losses were unforeseen.
However, Bhat questioned that the billionaire had not paid arrears of Rs 90 lakh in salary and other commitments which ran up to Rs 5 crore in pending bills.
To this Sudhakar said: “There is no loss to the government as the building was constructed by Shetty and was handed over to the state free of cost. We have already paid the pending salaries of Rs 90 lakh from the Ayushman Bharat scheme and the rest of the pending arrears will also be borne by the government.”