Anantapur: Space crunch hits GGH expansion

Anantapur: As Government General Hospital (GGH) in the city is overcrowded with patients coming from every nook and corner of the district, the state government issued a Government Order directing a few departments to give up their office buildings site in favour of expansion of GGH. The district collector Gandham Chandrudu had identified government buildings space located in the vicinity of the GGH.

Among the identified buildings, Fire Services office, Forest bunglow and District Medical and Health Office buildings are available in the vicinity of GGH. A proposal had been sent to the state government by collector Gandham Chandrudu identifying availability of 12.79 acres land and buildings space which if vacated by the departments concerned can facilitate expansion of the GGH.

The state government in principle had agreed to the proposal and asked collector to make alternative arrangements for shifting the offices.

However, there are several bottlenecks being faced by the departments in vacating their office buildings as they are yet to find suitable office space and so the delay for the taking possession of lands and construction of buildings.

The government has earmarked Rs 300 crore for expansion of hospital buildings under Nadu-Nedu scheme. According to medical norms, government medical colleges having 150 seats for medicine students should have 1,200 hospital beds but the hospital has only 500 beds. So, the hospital needs space for adding bed strength of 700 to the existing 500 beds.