13 years on, NTPHC Hajin still incomplete

Bandipora, Sep 15: Thirteen years after starting working on the New Type Primary Health Centre (NTPHC) in Khumina, AmchiKundal village of Hajin in north Kashmir’s Bandipora district, the facility is still non-functional.

This has irked a large population of the village and its adjoining areas.

   

The locals said that the work had been going on irregularly at a snail’s pace for almost 13 years now.

According to locals, the foundation stone of the building was laid amid much fanfare in 2008 and the following year, the construction of the hospital was started.

Yet after all these years, the hospital is still to be made functional owing to the pending construction works.

“Though the tumultuous situation halted the work at certain intervals, the project never geared pace when the situation was better,” said Waseem Ahmad Rather, a local.

Riyaz Ahmad Rather, another local said, “Many areas of Sumbal and Hajin within a 7-km radius would benefit if the NTPHC was complete and running with all the facilities that a hospital should have.”

He said that the people, especially those in emergencies get affected due to the facility being incomplete.

The locals said that the NTPHC facility was being run in a decrepit structure with just two small rooms outside the under-construction hospital on a rent for several years now, which could hardly accommodate two patients.

“The machinery and other life-saving equipment were impossible to install for lack of space,” a medico said.

The locals said that the new building was nearly complete but the construction agency was not working as it should for finishing the pending works.

Block Medical Officer (BMO), Hajin, DrAijaz Ahmad said, “Due to pending internal works, the building is yet to be handed over to the Health department by the R&B, which is the executing agency.”

Officials said that the locals had raised the grievance in various government-sponsored programmes like ‘Back to Village’ to press for its completion.

The locals said Rs 93 lakh was spent on the building and that the amount escalated every year and the project was termed as languishing.

“The cost keeps on changing annually,” the BMO said.

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