The old buildings of the Osmania General Hospital are to be turned into a tourist attraction once the hospital is shifted to its new premises at Goshamahal in Hyderabad.
| Photo Credit: NAGARA GOPAL
The State government has decided to relocate the Osmania General Hospital, presently housed in a heritage building of the Nizams, to Goshamahal police academy.
Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy took a decision to this effect considering availability of 32 acre land of police stadium, sports complex and other amenities at Goshamahal in the heart of the city. He directed the officials concerned to take steps to ensure speedy transfer of the land presently in possession of the Home department to Health department facilitating construction of the new building.
The Chief Minister reviewed the progress of works taken up under SPEED (smart, proactive, efficient and effective delivery) scheme with senior officials on Tuesday. Of the 19 works listed under the scheme, construction of new building for Osmania General Hospital, setting up 15 new nursing colleges, 28 paramedical colleges and construction of buildings for self-help groups were discussed during the meeting.
Mr. Revanth Reddy directed the officials to plan the design of the proposed new hospital that they should meet the requirements for the coming 50 years. Steps should be taken to provide road connectivity to the hospital to avoid inconvenience to the people coming from different places as also to ensure construction of buildings for academic block and nursing staff.
The new hospital should be equipped with facilities on par with the corporate hospitals and steps should be taken to see that the infrastructure had enough lung space for fresh air rather than crowding it with concrete structures. In this direction, he wanted officials to rope in reputed architects to finalise the designs.
At the same time, Mr. Revanth Reddy said the government would take steps to protect the historical structures of the present OGH. The government would simultaneously develop the buildings as part of the Musi Riverfront Development project to make them major tourist attraction. He asked the officials to arrange for an alternate location to the Home department for setting up city police academy as it had surrendered the land to the Health department.
The Hyderabad District Collector was directed to undertake field visit to Police Transport Academy at Petlaburj and the land abutting the Police Academy so that the Police Stadium and Sports Complex could be relocated there. The Chief Minister wanted the officials to expedite construction of hospitals as well as the 15 nursing colleges in different parts of the State and ensure that they were operational before next year.
The nursing colleges in particular should start functioning from this year itself and the officials should ensure that the colleges were set up in rented buildings as a temporary measure. On the own buildings for self-help groups, Mr. Revanth Reddy said there were offices for SHGs in 10 districts and the government had resolved to take up construction of the buildings in 22 districts in the coming days.
The government had decided to allot one acre land each to these buildings so that they could be equipped with all facilities. He directed the officials to identify locations where these offices could be constructed and asked them to transfer three acre land allotted in the vicinity of Shilparamam to the department concerned.
The facility could be utilised as a year-long exhibition centre for the products manufactured by the SHGs and steps should be taken to see that dignitaries visiting Hyderabad were made to visit this exhibition so as to encourage the SHGs.
