Seven staff quarters of the Pauri district hospital are in a precarious situation due to the risk of landslide exacerbated by a portion of the hospital’s land being cut away by the Pauri municipal council in order to build parking facility. A number of local residents blame the municipal council chairman Yashpal Benam alleging that he had ordered the action which has increased the risk of landslide vulnerability. Earlier in the month, the district hospital staff members then occupying the official quarters had also approached the district magistrate seeking protection from the heightened risk of landslides during the rainy season. The district magistrate had then assured the complainants that the authorities concerned will be directed to construct a retaining wall to mitigate landslide risk posed to the official quarters. However, more than 20 days after the district magistrate assured necessary measures, little has been done to ensure protection of the quarters and those occupying them.
The chief medical superintendent of the Pauri district hospital, Dr UC Kandwal said that three families had been shifted out of the quarters to other residential quarters available in the district hospital campus while the four other families who had been asked to shift to safer locations, refused to do so. The Garhwal MP representative Vinod Sachdeva, who is also a nominated member of the city municipal council, alleged that the municipal council chairman Yashpal Benam had directed the said construction work without the proposal for it being passed by members during the municipal council board meeting. Only the estimated cost of construction was presented before the board fior its approval, he said.
The MP representative further alleged that construction work is being undertaken in violation of the rules framed under the municipal act. He said, “Despite this, the local administration has continued to maintain an apathetic stance towards the illegal construction activities being undertaken under the authority of the municipal council chairman,” added Sachdeva.
Former chairman of the Pauri municipal council, Jaspal Singh Negi alleged that the trees planted near the district headquarter Pauri were cut by the hospital authorities, not for any developmental purpose but due to pressure being exerted on them to facilitate completion of the vehicular parking site project.
If sources are to be believed, the mall road is under the purview of the Public Works Department provincial division and the municipal council had encroached upon the land of district hospital without getting the land transferred. The general opinion of people living in the Pauri town is that illegal and ill-planned construction works of the municipal council are being ignored by the district administration in spite of a number of complaints being registered by citizens. Critics opine that absence of any action against allegedly illegal construction in Pauri is raising the level of dissatisfaction among the residents.