Lucknow, Dec 27 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh government has signed an MoU with US-based Saloni Heart Institute Foundation of San Francisco to set up a centre of excellence in paediatric cardiology at the Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) in Lucknow.

The Centre will provide treatment for congenital heart defects in children.

The MoU for the project was signed by a delegation of ministers and senior bureaucrats that visited the US recently to invite companies to invest in UP as part of the UP Global Investors' Summit-2023.

The foundation will set up a 200-bed Paediatric Cardiology Centre at SGPGIMS at a cost of Rs 480 crore.

Additional chief secretary, infrastructure and industrial development, Arvind Kumar said that during the US tour, an Indian-origin couple living in California, Mili and Himanshu Seth, expressed their desire to build a unit for the treatment of congenital heart defects in children.

"This led to an agreement between the state government and Saloni Heart Foundation," he said, adding that in the first phase, the unit will begin with 30 beds.

State Finance Minister Suresh Khanna, in whose presence the MoU was signed, said that as per founder Mili Seth, there was a lack of training infrastructure and specialization for such diseases in India.

Mili Seth said that 23 superspecialist paediatric cardiologists and paediatric cardiothoracic surgeons across the world are associated with her organisation.