Illegal construction on the Patna Medical College and Hospital campus. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Patna, Oct. 10: Patients and students of Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) have to jostle with encroachers for space and facilities despite a high court order to resolve the problems at the premier health hub.

Sources said the encroachers, who have settled on large parts of the health hub campus, have made life difficult for the patients and the hospital authorities. The squatters have erected makeshift huts near the banks of river Ganga and use PMCH’s power and water facilities. They also litter the campus.

“The encroachers have been pilfering electricity and water from the PMCH campus,” said Dr N.P. Yadav, the principal of the health hub.

“The departments along the river bank are the worst-affected. Voltage fluctuation and water scarcity because of unauthorised usage of power and water supply connections by the encroachers affects the functioning of these depart-ments. Worse still, many of the encroachers have now erected concrete structures on the riverbank. Our efforts to remove them from the campus have yielded no result.”

In February this year, a division bench comprising Justice Shiva Kirti Singh and Justice Gopal Prasad, while hearing a PIL of one Guddu Baba alias Vikash Chandra, had issued a directive to the state chief secretary to constitute a high-level committee to improve the state of affairs at the PMCH.

According to the directive, the principal secretaries of the state departments of health, road and building construction, Patna Municipal Corporation commissioner and the PMCH superintendent should be part of the committee to suggest and implement measures to improve the condition of the hospital.

The principal added: “There have been a number of incidents of thefts on PMCH premises in the past few months. We suspect the squatters on the campus could be the culprits. However, neither the police nor the committee has done anything to take action against them.”

The court had ordered that the committee should meet within three weeks to suggest and take measures to maintain sanitation, undertake repair works and remove encroachment from the campus.

Yadav said: “We had our hopes pinned on the committee’s efforts and recommendations. Unfortunately, nothing has happened so far.”

Sources said the members of the committee had not met even once to discuss a plan of action though, according to the direction of the court, they were supposed to submit a report within eight months on the action they had taken.