Historic Warangal central prison is now history
Fearing obstruction from people opposing the demolition, a heavy police force has been deployed at the premises and even the main road between the Kakatiya Medical College (KMC) and the MGM hospital has been blocked.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 14 Jun 2021 2:20 PM GMT
Warangal: The 135-year-old Warangal central prison is being razed to make way for a multi-specialty hospital envisioned by Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao. Fearing obstruction from people opposing the demolition, a heavy police force has been deployed at the premises and even the main road between the Kakatiya Medical College (KMC) and the MGM hospital has been blocked.
None, including the media, is allowed to enter the police cordon. Following KCR's visit to the MGM hospital and the jail, and his subsequent announcement that the MGM hospital would be converted into a mother and child hospital and the central jail would be shifted to the outskirts of the city so that a multi-specialty hospital would be set up there, the jail shifting works were undertaken on a war footing.
The inmates were shifted to various jails across the state much ahead of the planned date and the land was handed over to the medical and health department by the home ministry paving way for demolition of the structure, reducing it to history.
KCR, who is expected to inaugurate the Warangal Integrated Collectorate complex on 21 June, is also expected to lay the foundation for the construction of the proposed new hospital.
The hospital is said to provide medical services to people from 12 districts in eastern and northeastern Telangana. Around 73 acres of land is available on the prison premises. Of this, Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences building was constructed on five acres. The rest of the site will house the multi-super specialty hospital.
Meanwhile, the secrecy being maintained by the officials in the demolition of the prison is raising several questions. Even the general public is expressing unhappiness over the inconvenience caused due to the closure of the road.
The opposition parties took shots at the state's plan. The district Congress committee president Naini Rajender Reddy said that the TRS government has taken up the shifting of the jail only to convert the prime land into a commercial space. He said the government would construct the proposed hospital in just six or seven acres out of the total 64 acres and the remaining land would be leased out.
"The KCR family would take possession of the remaining land and use it to benefit from leasing it. The existing MGM hospital is completely in a state of negligence. If the same funds used to demolish and construct a hospital are provided to it, the hospital could have been turned into a world-class structure," he said.
