Bhubaneswar, Oct. 22: The city and district administrations have failed to monitor the functioning of IMS and SUM Hospital, which is running without required permissions.

Khurda district collector Niranjan Sahoo yesterday said the hospital was given conditional renewal of registration certificate, followed by a no-objection certificate from the Khurda chief district medical officer. He further said they had issued show-cause notice to the hospital authorities after the mishap and action would be taken according to the response.

Besides, the Bhubaneswar Development Authority also said the hospital was running without the occupancy certificate. It said that as the hospital did not comply with the building plan norms, the occupancy certificate was not given to it. The development authority's vice-chairman Krishan Kumar said they would look into the matter.

Occupancy certificate is issued only after the authority has physically provided all utility services for the entire building. The certificate states the use or type of occupancy of the building. According to the building plan approval rules, an owner can apply for the certificate once everything is done and if any response is not received within the first two months of the application from the development authority, the certificate is deemed to have been given to the owner. In this case, the hospital possessed the certificate by default.

The death toll in the fire incident at the hospital rose to 26 after one more person succumbed to injuries at a private hospital in Bhubaneswar today. The deceased has been identified as Kartikeswar Das of GGP Colony.

However, the official toll stands at 21 as the five other deaths reported yesterday and today are yet to be confirmed by the officials. Four accident victims died yesterday, while 19 succumbed to their injuries on Monday and two more on consecutive days at different hospitals in the twin cities of Cuttack and Bhubaneswar.

In another development, the Capital Hospital administration handed over the autopsy reports of the 19 deceased to police today.

"Two of our doctors conducted the post-mortem. We cannot reveal the reasons as the police will use it for investigation," said hospital director B.B. Pattnaik. Sources, however, revealed that all the deaths were due to asphyxiation and none was due to burns.

The police summoned Sum Medical College dean Gangadhar Sahoo and Siksha 'O' Anusandhan University vice-chancellor Amit Banerjee for interrogation. Both officials appeared before the Khandagiri police earlier this morning. The duo were called on the final day of remand of hospital owner Manoj Nayak.

Moreover, the lookout notice issued against Nayak's wife Saswati Das is still in force, as she is yet to appear before the police. "The lookout notice issued against her is still in effect," said police commissioner Y.B. Khurania, adding that they got the autopsy report of the 19 deceased from the Capital Hospital, where the reasons and circumstances of the death had been mentioned. However, he refused the divulge the reasons behind the deaths.