Srinagar: Defunct lift at Custodian Department’s IQ Complex at Hyderpora here is causing immense inconvenience to visitors including patients.
At the five-floor modern building, Shazia Akbar (name changed) tries to reach the third floor climbing stairs and stopping after every four steps. The 36-year old is in her third trimester, and the stairs to her doctor’s clinic are her constant worries. “It is so difficult for me to even walk, the stairs are just impossible,” she tells her family, who support her weight while she climbs up the steps.
The clinic is one of the very few indigenous ones in the region offering services for difficult pregnancies and high risk pregnancies. “Women carrying twins and triplets also climb these stairs,” Shazia is told by her family to help her gather some will to carry on her upstairs journey. “There is no other way,” she is told.
The lift of the building does not function. A notice, worn out, is stuck to its entrance saying “Out of Order”. The building was constructed by the Custodian Department Kashmir and allotted to various doctors 15 years ago. Many high-end businesses also started their offices from these spaces.
“We were offered a 24 x 7 lift, apart from other services. This is breach of contract,” Dr Shahnaz Taing, ex-HoD gynecologist working at the IQ Complex said. The doctor said that over the past 15 years the lift has “not even operated for five months”. Other doctors who have been upfront and vocal about the issue include Dr Afzal Wani, Dr Tariq Abdullah and Dr Javid.
A recent letter to the Grievance Cell of LG by the practitioners practicing and businesses running from this space paints the grimness of the situation. “The building regularly receives people with post-operative complications and neurological disorders,” it reads. The letter states that the lift functioned for four months last year, after the intervention of the LG. “But for the past four months, it is again defunct,” it reads.
A businessman with his store on the ground floor says the notice is pasted fresh every now and then but the lift is not repaired. This multi-purpose mall houses at least eight private practitioner clinics and many businesses.
Rajesh Sharma, Custodian General J&K said that he will look into the issue. “I will ask the concerned official on the ground to look into the issue so that it is addressed accordingly” Sharma said.