Avinash Azad
The sheer incompetence of Jammu and Kashmir’s Health Department has condemned the Chest Diseases (CD) Hospital in Srinagar to decay in a crumbling heritage shell, while patients and healthcare workers suffer the fallout of relentless administrative neglect.
In a jaw-dropping admission before the assembly on Saturday, the government laid bare its failure to deliver a modern multi-story facility, trotting out feeble excuses like the COVID-19 pandemic—a crisis that faded into irrelevance by 2021—while years of inertia and bureaucratic blunders pile up like rubble.
Responding to a pointed query from MLA Ahsan Pardesi, the government confessed that the CD Hospital at Dalgate continues to function in an outdated heritage structure, ill-equipped to meet the demands of modern pulmonary care.
A Detailed Project Report (DPR) for a G+4 hospital building was supposedly drafted, but it gathers dust due to “pending observations” from the Development Commissioner (Works) under the Public Works (R&B) Department. The executing agency, JKPCC Ltd, apparently couldn’t be bothered to address these concerns, stalling the crucial Administrative Approval (AAA) process.
The government shamelessly trotted out COVID-19 as a scapegoat, claiming the pandemic derailed all development work. Yet, this excuse rings hollow—by early 2021, the virus’s grip had loosened, and the world was moving on.
Even during the crisis, the CD Hospital was designated a COVID-19 treatment center, a role it served admirably despite its dilapidated state. Construction, the government insists, was “impossible” then. But what about the four years since? The merger of JKPCC with PWD (R&B) only added to the chaos, further entangling an already convoluted process.
Now, in a belated bid to save face, the government promises a new DPR aligned with the latest Schedule of Rates (SoR), to be prepared by the PW (R&B) Department. The project, they claim, will move forward once clearances and No Objection Certificates (NoCs) are secured.
But for the people of Srinagar, these are just more hollow words from a leadership that excels at procrastination. Patients gasping for breath and overworked doctors deserve better than a heritage relic masquerading as a hospital. The CD Hospital’s modernization isn’t just overdue—it’s a matter of life and death. Yet, the J&K government seems content to let bureaucratic red tape and stale excuses choke the life out of this critical project. How many more years must the region’s pulmonary healthcare suffocate before action replaces rhetoric?
