Hospital land to go to PUDA
From Varinder Walia
Tribune News Service

AMRITSAR, Nov 18 — The cash-strapped Punjab Government has decided to sell prime ‘surplus land’ of government hospitals to the Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA) at throwaway prices.

According to sources, PUDA would hold an auction of the land for commercial use.

The land which is likely to be transferred measures 9.7 acres (47175 square yards). It forms part of Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital and Ram Lal Eye and ENT Hospital. It includes 33175 square yards donated by Seth Ram Lal Suri, a philanthropist, in 1937 along with a palatial building.

According to Dr Baljit Singh Dhillon, general secretary, Punjab State Medical and Dental Teachers Association, land donated by an individual could not be transferred to any organisation or person as per the law. He said this was for the second time that the state government was making an attempt to sell the land belonging to government hospitals.

Earlier, the government had tried to construct a police colony on August 20, 1992, on the land. No tender was floated for constructing the colony. However, the move was opposed tooth and nail by the staff and the association and the government had to shelve the scheme.

The proceedings of the meeting presided over by the Chief Minister read: "The department proposed to dispose of this land (9.7 acres) on the understanding that the money would be given to the Medical Education Department only to furnish some of the capital projects underway".

A communication by the Medical Superintendent of Guru Teg Bahadur Group of Hospitals to the Director, Research and Medical Education, Punjab, reads: "The rate quoted by the Revenue Department for the land proposed to be transferred to PUDA is Rs 5000 per square yard (Ram Lal ENT Hospital) while the rate quoted for surplus land of Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital is Rs 10,000 per square yards".

The letter says if PUDA was ready to pay the above rate for the land, the Medical Superintendent had no objection in transferring it to PUDA.

However, Dr Dhillon claimed that the land proposed to be transferred was not ‘surplus land’ as claimed by the Medical Department. He said the land was being transferred at a "very poor rate" as compared to the market rate. The association would oppose the move of the state government, he said.

A formal meeting was held under the chairmanship of Dr O.P. Mahajan, Principal, Medical College, regarding the land transfer yesterday. The proceedings of the meeting read: "After a long discussion, members were of the opinion that instead of transferring a part of Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, i.e. 28 kanals out of 82 kanals, the whole of the hospital complex should be transferred to PUDA at reasonable rate and the funds so collected may be utilised for the completion of a 200 bed emergency-cum-super specialities block so that wards for gynae, skin and psychiatry departments could be shifted there".

The proceedings further read: "In this way, more funds would be collected and the long awaited building can be completed at the earliest".

Apart from Dr O.P. Mahajan, Principal, Medical College and the Chairman, other members who attended the meeting were Dr B.L. Goel, Head Psychiatry, Dr Devinder Kaur, Head, Gynae, Dr S.P. Dewan, Head, Skin, Dr S.K. Gulati, Prof, ENT, Dr H.S. Gill, Medical Superintendent, Sri Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital, Dr Baljit Singh Dhillon, Deputy Medical Superintendent, Ram Lal Eye ENT Hospital, Mr S.C. Sharma, Executive Engineer, PWD, Mr R.K. Bhandari, SDE, Public Health, and Mr Rajinder Singh, SDE, PWD.

The Punjab State Medical and Dental Teachers Association has questioned the decision for transferring the entire building of Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital to PUDA for raising funds. The building is more than 100 years old which should be preserved as a monument. The old name of the hospital was Victoria Jubilee Hospital.

Dr H.S. Gill, Medical Superintendent claims that the building is dilapidated and it needs to be demolished.

Education crumbles in cyclone
From T.V.Lakshminarayan
Tribune News Service

KENDRAPARA, Nov 18 — For 12-year-old Biswajit it has been a long holiday ever since the supercyclone pounded his school in a remote village in Kendrapara district a fortnight ago.

Biswajit is one among the 1,80,000 children in the district who don’t have a school to go. The aftermath of the century’s worst disaster in Orissa has left the state’s education system crumbling.Thousands of school buildings all along the sea coast have been extensively damaged and whatever little had remained of the school infrastructure has been looted and encroached upon.

The blackboards, desks, chairs and tables have been used as firewood by hundreds of cyclone-stricken people who took refuge in the school and college buildings in the affected areas. With their dwellings blown away and no means of livelihood hundreds of thousands of people are threatening to stay on in the school buildings and other structures.

Says Mr Prafulla Kumar Jena, District Inspector, Schools, of Kendrapara district, ‘‘Even if the people are forced to vacate the school buildings, there is no hope of starting teaching for days to come’’.

Some of the furniture and school equipment has been looted by people while some has been used to cook food during the past 15 days. There is little hope of setting up temporary schools in makeshift tents as there is no tent material available.Kendrapara alone has 982 primary and medium schools spread around a radius of 60 km and about 70 to 80 per cent of them have suffered extensive damage.

According to Mr Jena, he has received no instruction from the state government on how to operationalise the schools and till then the 3000 teachers employed in the school have to remain idle.The State Government authorities in Bhubaneswar too have no idea about how long it will take to resume schooling in various parts of Orissa.

According to initial estimates, more than 13,000 schools have been completely damaged in 28 cyclone-hit education districts. Even the primary schools and high schools with pucca buildings that escaped the cyclone fury are not fit to use as a large number of people and cattle have taken refuge in them.

A conservative estimate says that it will require at least Rs 40 crore to restore a semblance of infrastructure in the majority of the schools.

According to School and Mass Education Minister Sheikh Matlub Ali the cyclone has broken the backbone of Orissa’s education system.His department has Rs 42 crore under the Operation Blackboard scheme and all of it is likely to be used to purchase teaching material for the primary schools in the cyclone-affected areas.

There is also a talk of diverting another Rs 1.5 crore, sanctioned for providing science apparatus for school laboratories, to the affected districts.With thousands of children losing their text books and even uniforms in the flash floods that accompanied the strong winds the state government has approached the Centre for help.

Mr Ali says he has approached the Ministry of Human Resource Development for financial aid to start book banks in schools.Even as the state struggles to put the education system back on the rails, sociologists have warned the affected children face grave danger in the aftermath of the devastating cyclone.

According to the UK-based Save the Children organisation, the cyclone has turned the children’s lives upside down. Many of them are hungry and traumatised.

A relief coordinator for a private firm, Mr B.P.Singh, recalls the instance when four children in a bid to escape the rising waters in Jagatsinghpur district climbed up a huge tree and remained atop for two days without food or water. When the villagers found them and asked them to come down, the children were so traumatised that they refused to come down.

Going to school would help get over these experiences and top priority should be given for rebuilding the schools, he adds.Save the Children, in collaboration with People’s Rural Education Movement, has announced plans to rebuild schools in the affected areas.