Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Tuesday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to direct the Department of Atomic Energy to provide necessary budgetary allocation for setting up a hub of Tata Memorial Centre here to treat cancer patients.

The request came few days after Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik urged the Prime Minister to set up a hub of Tata Memorial Centre here.Pradhan informed Modi that the Institute of Physics, Bhubaneswar, which is under the administrative control of Department of Atomic Energy, has submitted a proposal for providing budgetary allocation for the establishment of a hub of Tata Memorial Centre in its campus.The Department of Atomic Energy gives grant-in-aid and manages the Tata Memorial Centre.

"The proposed hub will provide affordable care for cancer patients of the state and will also initiate and lead an advanced research in this field of research as well as complex biological system," he said, adding that the centre will be equivalent to the ones planned at Chandigarh and Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi.

He said that a lot of patients from Odisha and neighbouring states, who visit Tata Memorial Centre at Mumbai, face problem due to long waiting period and expensive cost of living at Mumbai.The proposed hub would serve the cancer patients of Odisha and neighbouring states, he added.