The Prime Minster of India, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, today opened a new, seismic-resistant hospital at Bhuj - a symbol of the brave, new face of a city that is virtually reinventing itself after the devastation of the quake of 2001. ECC - the Construction & Contracts Division of L&T - undertook re-construction of the 500-bed GK General Hospital in a Rs 110-crore project financed through the Prime Minister's Relief Fund.

As Bhuj falls under seismic zone V, and is prone to earthquakes of medium to high intensity, the structural design had to be earthquake-resistant matching with the international standards. The technology of Base Isolation was thus adopted to isolate the superstructure from the basement. The isolators used for this purpose were designed at New Zealand, and manufactured and imported from Malaysia.

ECC maintained the project on schedule with the active cooperation of the National Dairy Development Board and the Prime Minister's Office.