Assam Minister of Health, Himanta Biswa Sarma has announced on Monday that 19 cancer care units will be set up in the state in collaboration with the Tata Trust. The company signed a MoU with the state government during the 'Advantage Assam – Global Investment Summit, 2018' which was held in February. Chairman Ratan Tata is slated to lay the foundation stone.

The laying of foundation stone is scheduled on June 17 in Guwahati, said Sarma.  New units would be set up to provide advanced treatment to the cancer patients of the north east, he added.

The Minister also informed that, it will take almost two years to complete the construction of all the 19 cancer units which will be established under the supervision of Assam Cancer Care Foundation and the Tata Trust. The units would be set up as a joint venture with Rs 1000 crore from each party making it an estimate of Rs 2000 crore.

The Assam Cancer Care Foundation will be headed by the health minister himself. The hospitals would be based on a three-tier system which will be constructed under the L3 (Level 3), L2 (Level 2), L1 (Level 1) divisions.

The L3 hospitals will maintain the basic standards of a hospital and will be located at Barpeta, Diphu, Dhubri, Jorhat, Silchar, Tezpur, Lakhimpur, Nagaon and Dibrugarh.

The L2 hospitals will maintain surgery standards and will be set up at Goalpara, Haflong, Karimganj, Kokrajhar, Golaghat, Darrang, Nalbari, Sivasagar and Tinsukia districts.

The L1 hospital will have sophisticated standards and will be at Guwahati.

"The L1 or a state-level cancer care institute in Guwahati will have advanced tertiary care facilities, L2 or medical colleges in the state would have facilities for chemotherapy, radiation and surgical oncology and L3 or district hospitals would have day-care, chemotherapy and radiation facilities," he said.