Foundation for college building laid amid unsavoury incidents

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD, OCT. 9. The Health Minister, Dr S. Aruna, laid the foundation-stone for the new building of the State's oldest dental college-cum-hospital run by the Government in the Osmania General Hospital here on Monday amid unsavoury incidents with nursing students being on a protest dharna on one side, preventing her from reaching the `bhoomi puja' site, and BJP workers removing welcome banners in her presence on the other on the ground that the name of the area's MLA, Mr Prem Singh Rathod, was not mentioned.

Mr Rathod, however, was very much in the company of the Minister when his followers pulled off the banners. Dr Aruna and the Union Minister of State for Urban Development, Mr B. Dattatreya, could complete the ceremony only after making an announcement to shift the site of the construction following which the agitating students withdrew.

The new building has been taken up on an emergecny basis with the Dental Council of India threatening to decognise the college- hopsital if it continued in an annexe of the Osmania hospital, without having its own building. According the college's principal, Dr B. K. Reddy, the Government has already released Rs 3.5 crores out of the total cost of the college-hospital, Rs 5 crores, and given administrative sanction for Rs 2 crores for construction of a women's hostel for the college in the premises of Osmania Medical College at Koti for which the Minister, however, laid the stone without a hitch.

The sequence of events shows that the cause for the trouble was due to an overnight decision by the Government to shift the site from a 3.5-acre site available near the Osmania's mortuary as originally planned, to the Osmania School of Nursing, also in the same premises. The revised decision seeks to demolish the pucca complex of the Nursing School together with the hostels where nearly 200 students are already sheltered.

Coming to know about the change only through the invitation card delivered to them and surprised at the plaque erected overnight, anguised nurses and students gathered at the site along with Mrs C. Lakshmi Devi, principal of the nursing school, to stage a dharna. Seeing the two Ministers coming, they squatted around the plaque blocking their way. A BJP activist around this time pulled down another welcome banner hung nearby.

The Ministers, visibly upset, went inside the Nursing School and inspected its self-contained hostel. Mr Dattatreya got angry at the Osmania superintendent, Dr K. Satyavathi, who spoke in favour of the nurses. The Government Doctors' Association submitted an impromptu representation around this time seeking a settlement. The issue was amicably settled finally by the Health Minister herself who gave a written undertaking and made an announcement to the effect that the stone would be laid at the place where the plaque was put up, now that the arrangements were made, but actual construction would take place near the mortuary. The students were happy over the announcement.

The two Ministers, MLA and a host of officials, including the Director-General for Health Services, Mr J. Anji Reddy, joined the puja. But then, there was another problem. Dr A. Gopalkishan, noted nephrologist, former Osmania superintendent and now member of the hospital's development society, refused to join them on the ground that the dental colleges should not be located within the Osmania premises as per the latter's master plan and it should be located somewhere else--in the premises of the Gandhi Medical College which is going to Musheerabad Jail marked for demolition or to the Musheerabad Jail site itself. He turned down the plea to join the puja saying he should not be a party to the decision.

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