Site being changed as project has run into rough weather after adverse soil report of the proposed location.
Srinagar: The much hyped 500-bed Covid Hospital in Kashmir being constructed by the Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) at Rishipora, Budgam, is likely to miss the 25 May deadline as the project has run into rough weather following adverse soil report of the proposed location. Work on the project was started on a war footing in the first week of May to complete it in record time. Hundreds of trees were cut and land filled to prepare a road to the site. Work on the location has been stopped now by the authorities citing technical reasons.
Sources in the administration revealed that the proposed hospital had to be turned into a full-fledged hospital once the Covid subsides. But now the site is being changed and the hospital shifted to the Khonmoh areas of South Kashmir, which is an industrial area.
Many acres of land had been donated by the residents of the Rishipora in Budgam district for construction of a hospital some 15 years back when Ghulam Nabi Azad was the Chief Minister of the erstwhile state. However, the project got caught in bureaucratic bottlenecks and never saw the light of day. It was only in April this year that the DRDO announced plans to construct a Covid hospital here at the instance of the UT administration. A similar hospital is coming up in Jammu also.
The land donors and residents of Rishipora who were joyous and overwhelmed by the decision of DRDO are a disappointed lot now. They smell a political conspiracy to shift the hospital to South Kashmir.
“I don’t understand this move of shifting the hospital to South Kashmir. If this land is not suitable for construction they could have chosen some other piece of land within Budgam. We have been waiting for this for decades,” an agitated local resident Ali Mohammad told The Sunday Guardian.
Another resident Mubashir Hussain claimed that the new selected place is an industrial area where many cement factories operate. “It would be hazardous for the patients and attendants of Covid Hospital to come up at Khanmoh,” he said.
A religious organization Anjuman Sharie Shia has termed the decision of changing the site from Budgam to Khonmoh as “historic injustice”.
In a statement, the organization said that Budgam people had been waiting for decades for such a facility, but the same is being denied now for “political reasons”.
The proposed hospital will have 500 fully oxygenated beds and was supposed to be completed within 35 days. But now with the change of site, the project is likely to get delayed. The site in Budgam would have catered to both the districts of Budgam and Srinagar. The same cannot be said about the new place.
Jammu and Kashmir has been witnessing a spike in Covid positive cases during the last few weeks with around 4,000 cases being reported daily on an average. The number of Covid deaths has also gone up, with Srinagar leading in the numbers. Alarmed at the situation, the administration has turned Hajj House in Srinagar into a Covid Wellness Center where, with the help of a local NGO, around 200 oxygenated beds have been kept ready. A similar facility has been set up in Indoor Stadium, Srinagar, where another 100 beds are being put in place. With the construction of a 500-bed Covid hospital in Kashmir, the health infrastructure is definitely getting a boost. But the change of site is definitely a loss for Budgam and gain for South Kashmir which already has an AIIMS being constructed in Awantipora.