The referral hospital at Taraiya in Saran. Telegraph picture

Villagers of Taraiya in Saran district are planning to launch an agitation if repairs are not started at the dilapidated referral hospital, which serves around 2 lakh people.

Sources said the building construction department — responsible for the hospital’s renovation — has made no effort to repair it despite repeated requests from the villagers and the district administration.

Anil Singh, the pramukh (village head) of Taraiya block, around 36km north of Chhapra and 70km northwest of Patna, told The Telegraph on Friday that he would launch an agitation if restoration was not initiated at the health hub within a month. “Around 2 lakh residents of the district depend on the hospital. But the facility is in a shambles. Our requests to the authorities concerned to get it repaired have produced no results. We shall start an agitation if repairs are not initiated by September,” said Singh.

Describing the problems at the health hub, a source said: “The building can collapse at any moment. A number of doctors are posted at the hospital but the post of a woman doctor has been vacant for the past five years. The operation theatre — where vasectomy is performed — is decrepit. After operations, patients have to rest on the verandah of the two-storey building, as the wards of the 30-bed hospital are unusable.”

Social worker Ram Vijay Singh, who has been lobbying for renovation at the hospital, has filed a PIL in Patna High Court. He told The Telegraph: “The regional health director conducted an inquiry and submitted a report to the district administration in 2010. In his report, he said the hospital building is ramshackle. In 2011, then civil surgeon Amarnath Jha requested the executive engineer of the building construction department to draw up a budget for the renovation of the hospital.”

He added: “The hospital in-charge also wrote to the authorities concerned a number of times requesting them to dismantle the old building and construct a new one in its place. But nothing has been done so far.”

The building construction department executive engineer at Chhapra, Shravan Kumar, was unavailable for comment.