The portion of the Patna Medical College playground which had been developed into a paid parking lot a few days back has now been converted into a volleyball court. The hospital, after inviting tenders, had allowed a private agency to create the parking lot on the playground. The agency had got a portion of the boundary wall of the playground demolished.

The Telegraph had highlighted the issue in its reports on February 13 and March 6. Social activist Guddu Baba had complained to principal secretary, health, R.K. Mahajan about the playground being converted into a paid parking facility in February. Baba, in his letter to Mahajan, had warned that the Patna Medical College administration's move was against the Medical Council of India (MCI) norms which can take notice of lack of playground facility in colleges and deny permission for the MBBS course.

Guddu had marked a copy of the letter to chief secretary Anjani Kumar Singh and director-in-chief, health services, Azad Hind Prasad. The controversy over the playground at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) converted into a paid parking lot had taken a fresh twist later as a Right to Information query by Guddu also revealed that the college had actually floated the parking lot tender for the vacant space behind Rajendra Surgical Block building on the campus and not for the playground.

While medical college principal S.N. Sinha had passed the buck on to the hospital administration for floating the tender, hospital superintendent Lakhendra Prasad had said the principal's office had allowed the private agency to create the parking lot on the playground.

Guddu said he was happy that finally the playground had been restored. "Apart from writing to the principal secretary, health, and marking a copy of the letter to director-in-chief and chief secretary, I had also written a letter to the MCI about this. The college and hospital authorities finally succumbed to the twin pressure of the MCI and the health department and they removed the paid parking facility from the the playground area," he said.

PMCH superintendent Prasad assured that the playground area will not be tampered with. "We have put up a volleyball net where the parking facility had been developed. Now the space would be used as a volleyball court," he assured. Students, naturally, were delighted to get back their playground."We don't have many recreational facilities at the college. We did not like the idea of converting the college playground into a parking lot. We are happy that the college removed the parking lot even though it did so after the health department and MCI intervened," said a second-year MBBS student.