Guwahati, Nov 27 (IANS): The Assam government will treat, free of cost, 619 children with congenital heart defect (CHD), at Kolkata and Bangalore in the next four months, state Minister for Health and Family Welfare Himanta Biswa Sarma said Wednesday.

The minister added that 1,470 children of the state with CHD, a birth defect in the structure of the heart and blood vessels, had already been successfully operated upon at the initiative of the Assam government since 2010.

"We launched a scheme to offer free treatment to children with CHD in July 2010 and since then we have been sending the children to hospitals in Kolkata and Bangalore," said Sarma, adding that all children who had been treated have recovered.

"Five such batches have already been successfully operated, and this is going to be the sixth batch. We have selected 619 children with the disease this time and all of them would be sent for operation in a phased manner. The whole process will be completed within next four months," he said.

The Assam government last year signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Narayana Hrudayalaya Private Limited of Bangalore for setting up a super-specialty hospital in Assam.

The proposed hospital will come up in Amingaon on the outskirts of Guwahati. The existing Tola Ram Bafna Civil Hospital at Amingaon will house the proposed super-specialty hospital, to be built under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

The minister said once that hospital became functional, operations would be carried out there.