Belongings of the evicted kept at an open field in the Bhangagarh area on Friday. Picture by Manas Paran

April 1: The Gauhati Medical College Hospital (GMCH) today fully backed the metropolitan administration in its ongoing eviction drive to clear around 400 bighas of hospital land.

An emergent meeting presided over by M.M. Deka, the principal-cum-chief superintendent of GMCH, this morning decided to constitute a committee to select the sites for the construction of permanent quarters for the hospital employees who were evicted by the administration.

Deka, however, said temporary sheds would be constructed immediately to give shelter to the employees. A committee will supervise the whole matter and decide on the allotment of temporary sheds.

He said other than the employees of the GMCH, no outsider would be allowed to take shelter in the temporary sheds.

Sources said the meeting was convened hurriedly after the GMCH Karmi Sangha threatened to go on a ceasework if they were not rehabilitated immediately.

The employees yesterday gheraoed the office of the superintendent and shouted slogans against the hospital for its failure to provide them with quarters.

The committee to select sites for the construction of permanent quarters would be consisting of R. Talukdar of GMC Teachers Association, P.N. Talukdar, deputy superintendent of GMCH, Babul Kalita, general secretary of GMCH Karmi Sangha, Akbar Ali Ahmed and Chand Balmiki of Karmi Sangha.

The committee will pick the sites before the monsoons set in.

The meeting appealed to the district administration to evict all the encroachers, including shops and the nearby market, from hospital land.

On the other hand, the administration carried out the eviction drive with full force for the second day today. No untoward incident was reported during the drive.

State health minister Bhumidhar Barman on March 18 asked the deputy commissioner of Kamrup metro, Samir Kumar Sinha, to carry out an eviction drive immediately on hospital land.

The problem of encroachment is so grave at the GMCH that the Medical Council of India on several occasions threatened to de-recognise this premier health institute of the region.

Of the 399 bigha and four katha land allotted to the GMCH by the government in 1972, in the present location, 55 bighas are already under encroachment.

Of the remaining land, the GMCH has given 40 bighas to the Regional Nursing College and five bighas for the construction of a TV transmission tower. Besides, 24 bighas, four kathas and six lessas of land were yet to be handed over to the institution by the government.

Today?s meeting expressed concern over the fact that only the non-teaching staff of the GMCH are occupying land both on the hill top and in the plains that belong to the hospital but several plots were sold out to the outsiders.