The Bihar Government's decision to redevelop Patna's prestigious PMCH by demolishing its historic buildings has upset the alumni of the State's first medical college, who have appealed to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to save the heritage of the 93-year-old institution for the posterity.
Born in 1925 as the Prince of Wales Medical College, set up to commemorate the visit of the then Prince of Wales, Edward VIII, its iconic, old heritage building are now proposed to be dismantled in multiple phases as part of a redevlopment plan.
The Prince of Wales had visited Patna on December 22-23 in 1921 as part of his royal tour of India and the college was established four years later to perpetuate the memory of his visit to what was then a young provincial capital of Bihar.
The college, renamed a few decades after Independence, as the Patna Medical College and Hospital, popularly known as PMCH, is dotted with historical buildings, including the Bankipore General Hospital and Women Hospital, which were equipped with special lifts in that era, the main administrative building, and physiology and anatomy departments, among other structures.
The new project of the Bihar Government has not gone down well with the PMCH alumni, living in Bihar or abroad, who have suggested restoring and preserving the historic institution in its original form and developing "extension centres" in peripheral areas of Patna, like Bihta or Fatuha, on the lines of AIIMS extension centres.
"All historic institutions endeavour to preserve their heritage for the next generation. And, the coming generation will be robbed off seeing the heritage of Bihar's first medical college. The Government should preserve it," PMCH Alumni Association president Dr Satyajeet Kumar Singh said.
Patna-based Singh, who had worked for several years in the UK after completing his graduation, rued that the campus buildings had some neglect over the last few decades, but it would be "grossly unwise" to demolish them and such a massive hospital in a congested area meant it would lead to "traffic nightmares" in streets.
The State Cabinet had in November given its nod for the redevelopment of the PMCH into the world's-largest 5462-bed hospital at an estimated cost of Rs 5540 crore.