An overview of Bhangagarh after the eviction drive last week. Picture by Manas Paran

April 8: A shortage of manpower has forced the metropolitan district administration to temporarily halt the ongoing eviction drive at the Gauhati Medical College Hospital (GMCH).

The hospital has, however, expressed fear and apprehension that the halt may give the encroachers scope to resettle on land which belongs to it.

A senior official in the administration said while some workers have been hired for tomorrow?s gaon chalo programme at Judges Field, others are at work at the eviction drive along the Bharalu river.

?We are planning to resume the eviction drive at GMCH from Monday. For now, the administration is giving more importance to eviction along the Bharalu as the river banks must be cleared before the monsoons,? he said.

The official said over 50 per cent of encroachments on GMCH land have been cleared and the rest would be evicted within a week. He said Dispur police have strictly instructed that encroachers must not resettle at the site.

The administration started the eviction drive on March 31 after receiving express instructions from Dispur.

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

The principal-cum-chief superintendent of GMCH, M.M. Deka, said considering the gravity of the problem, a sustained effort is required to clear the GMCH land.

Of the 399 bighas and four kathas of land allotted to the GMCH by the government in 1972 in its present location, 55 bighas have already been under encroachment.

Of the remaining land, the GMCH has given 40 bighas to the Regional Nursing College and five bighas for construction of a television transmission tower. A plot of 24 bighas, four kathas and six lesas has yet to be handed over to the institution by the government. Non-teaching staff of the GMCH are occupying land both on the hilltop and in the plains that come under the institution?s territory.

Deka said the administration should hesitate since the GMCH employees and staff have fully backed the eviction drive. He said the hospital would construct permanent living quarters for those GMCH employees who had illegally settled on land belonging to the hospital and subsequently evicted.

Chief minister Tarun Gogoi yesterday gave the administration a go ahead to clear GMCH land of encroachment.