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| Safety concerns to delay construction of Rehmat-I-Alam Hospital | | | SAAHIL SUHAIL
EARLY TIMES REPORT
ANANTNAG, Sept 27: The construction work on Rehmat-I-Alam Hospital, which Jammu and Kashmir Government took over from a local trust in South Kashmir’s Anantnag in 2017, is expected to face again inordinate delay in its completion.
According to JKPCC officials, the agency will not resume the interior construction work till they receive the safety audit from IIT Jammu.
They said the agency has released Rs. 21.30 Lakh in the month of March this year to ITT Jammu for carrying out the safety audit of two floors of the building that were constructed by the Rehmat-I-Alam Trust itself.
“We have released the money to IIT Jammu. They visited the construction last month and they are working on it. The moment they will hand over the safety audit to us we will tender out the works and resume interior construction works,” a JKPCC official, who is looking after the project, told Early Times.
He said that the agency will require at least eight working months to complete the construction of the hospital.
“Safety audit is important to us because we expect that if IIT Jammu finds some problems in the construction they will not highlight those problems but will surely recommend remedies which we can do at this stage,” he said, adding prior to safety audit interior works can’t be initiated.
K Vijay Kumar, former advisor to the Governor, had directed the health department to seek a safety audit for the already constructed portion of the building from DIQC department. However, the DIQC department later refused to conduct a safety audit of the building citing several reasons.
JKPCC later moved a proposal to Health and Medical Education asking them to approach IIT Jammu for carrying out the safety audit of the building.
The officials of Health and Medical Education on the other side blame JKPCC for failing to complete the construction of half-built Rehmat-I-Alam Hospital in the last three years.
“The agency had to only construct the two floors of the hospital building as the ground and first floor of the hospital was already constructed by the Rehmat-I-Alam trust. In the last three years JKPCC has just constructed two floors of the hospital and this is their achievement,” an official said.
During their recent visits, Advisors to the Lt Governor also emphasized upon completion of the pending work and shifting the MCCH Hospital at the earliest, however the agency continues to delay its completion.
Former J&K Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti in February 2017 had sanctioned the taking over of a trust run Rahmat-e-Alam hospital along with its assets and liabilities after people demanded shifting of existing Maternity and Child Care Hospital.
The existing Maternity and Child Care Hospital is functioning in a dilapidated and unsafe building in Sherbagh locality of Anantnag town. The place is congested and the hospital faces space crunch because of which more often patients’ mostly pregnant women are being shifted to Srinagar.
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