Locals protested after a privately-owned tertiary care hospital started parking place work on a piece of premium land, which was already allotted for a community hall in Durgapur town by the state urban body. The hospital, operating within the Bidhannagar locality, has been facing inconvenience for parking vehicles.
The patient parties, the ambulance operators, the physicians and other staff of the hospital have been suffering from parking Woes and the local residents too have been facing the problem as uncountable vehicles are parked everyday in front of their doorsteps.
The Asansol Durgapur Development Authority allocated a chunk of vacant land on annual rent of Rs 53 lakh to help with the parking lot of the hospital. The hospital authorities started ground labeling work for the purpose today, which however was prevented by the residents. Protestors like Alokesh Banerjee, Nayan Ghosh said, “The same land measuring 1.72 acres was allocated for installation of Rabindra Bhawan and Rs 2cr was sanctioned for the purpose four years ago.
Now, we were shocked to see the earthmoving machines were deployed by the private hospital for erecting a parking lot. We won’t allow this.” Ramesh Lall, president (human resource) of the hospital, said, “We’ve got a valid allotment letter issued by the government authority and we’ve also paid the state’s charges for this.” The ADDA authority, meanwhile, said that the hospital authority has been given a temporary permission for one year to use the vacant land as a parking place.”