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Srinagar, June 09 (KMS): The authorities in Indian illegally occupied Jammu & Kashmir (IIOJK) have made it a habit of missing the deadlines and the same has happened with respect to the construction of a COVID-19 dedicated hospital in Kashmir Valley.
Once the second wave of Corona Virus started to spread its tentacles across India, including the occupied territory, the Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO) announced to construct two COVID-19 dedicated hospitals in Jammu & Kashmir. One hospital was to be set up in Jammu and another one in Kashmir.
The COVID-19 hospital in Jammu missed the deadline of May 25 by a few days and it was ultimately commissioned, but as on date there is no clue about the commissioning of such a hospital in Kashmir Valley. The hospital has already missed the deadline by more than two weeks and still there is no word from the administration about the likely commissioning.
It merits mentioning here that the authorities in Kashmir had identified a piece of land at Reshipora in Central Kashmir’s Budgam district for the construction of COVID-19 hospital and the DRDO had in fact started the process for the same. The authorities felled dozens of trees for the construction of the hospital but no work after that was done.
The authorities at the last moment decided to shift the COVID-19 hospital out of the Budgam district and instead chose Khanmoh area in Srinagar district for the construction of this dedicated hospital. The change of location did not change the pace of work on the construction of the hospital and one fails to understand when the work will be completed.
The authorities had issued a statement that the COVID-19 hospital in Srinagar would be housed in a concrete building and that the said building was already there in the Khanmoh area.
The confusion among the officers of the civil administration and health department was visible as Deputy Commissioner Srinagar, Mohammad Aijaz Asad and Director Health Services Kashmir; Dr. Mushtaq Ahmad Rather gave conflicting dates about the commissioning of the hospital.
While the DC Srinagar claimed that the hospital would be made functional by May 30 the Director Health Services Kashmir said that the work on construction of the hospital would be completed in the first week of June. The Financial Commissioner (Health) had said that the hospital would be commissioned on June 5. Already the second week of June has set in, but till date there is no official word about the commissioning of the hospital.