The outdoor patient departments of all branches of Anandalok Hospital were shut between Monday and Wednesday after the management ran into trouble with the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation but the branches were reopened on Thursday after a solution was arrived at.

The multi-speciality hospital has 18 branches, including four in Salt Lake — one opposite Karunamoyee and the others in CK, CL and BF blocks. Its first branch, at Bangur, had opened in 1981. 

The hospital comes under the purview of the Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1952. Under this act, an employer is required to remit his contribution of provident fund within 15 days of the close of every month. But the PF office claimed Anandalok was late in making these payments between 2009 and 2016. 

As a result, a penalty and interest were levied on the hospital to the tune of Rs 9,02,258. When the hospital failed to make the payment the hospital claims that the PF office “took control of its bank accounts and cleared the dues on March 7”. 

“We had decided to keep the hospital shut from Monday but now that the dues have been paid we shall reopen on Thursday,” founder-director D.K. Saraf said at a press meet on Wednesday, but he added that the problem could recur. 

“The hospital runs on private donations and since philanthropists cannot be forced to make donations on the first of every month, we too are unable to make PF contributions by the 15th,” said Saraf. “So I appeal to the PF authorities to relax the deadline for us.”

On Wednesday, mayor Sabyasachi Dutta joined Saraf in making this plea. “Anandalok’s rates are much less than in other hospitals and they have been doing a lot of social work for years. The authorities should relax the rules on humanitarian grounds for the sake of patients,” he said. “There are government buildings in Salt Lake, like the CGO complex for instance, that haven’t paid us service tax for years but we haven’t used force on them.”