Kangan : It has been 15 years and yet the Maternity-cum-Child Care Hospital (M&CCH) here in Kangan town of Central Kashmir’s Ganderbal district is not completed.
Land for the hospital was identified in 2005 when Ghulam Nabi Azad was the Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir while Jammu Kashmir Housing Board was directed to execute the work on the hospital that was supposed to come up at an estimated cost of Rs 27.66 crores.
Locals told that with the completion of hospital the people of the area would receive best maternity and child care health facilities and they would not have to move to other towns and city hospitals.
“From past 15 years, this hospital has in construction mode. The Contractor sometimes stops the work for months together and sometimes starts the work. Nobody is there to care for this hospital and the local people,” said locals.
They said the completion of this hospital will not only lessen the burden of Lal Ded Hospital but it will also give relief to patients from Kangan and adjacent areas.
“Whenever we approach the authorities, they cite paucity of funds as the reason,” said a local.
“Government had promised us that it will be a 100 bed hospital. Not talking of infrastructure but even building is not getting completed,” said Sarpanch of the area.
An official of the Housing Board attributed the slow pace of work to non-availability of funds in past years.
Chief Medical Officer Ganderbal Dr Mehrajuddin Sofi said that there are no funds available at the moment. “The work on the hospital will be started once the funds are available,” he told KNT.
