RAWA LPINDI: A month ago, the district administration handed over the Government girls high school building and land to the District Headquarters (DHQ) Hospital, displacing 250 students though the hospital is yet to use the building and land for hospital expansion.

More than six kanals of land of the Government Municipal Corporation Girls` High School, adjacent to the DHQ Hospital was handed over to the hospital and students were enrolled in nearby government schools.

In 2011, former PML-N MNA Malik Shakil Awan spent Rs4.5 million for the reconstruction of six new rooms and a veranda at the school via grants from the Punjab government.

The school building and land has not been utilised as yet as the hospital administration did not initiate plans for the expansion of the emergency and paediatric department of the hospital.

When asked, District Education Authority Chief Executive Officer Qazi Zahoorul Haq said the school building and land was handed over to the DHQ hospital on the directives of the then district coordination officer, sajid Zafar Dall.

He said the DCO had taken the move because the hospital administration had wanted to expand the hospital building and did not have space to do so. Mr Haq said the school`s land belonged to the provincial government and there were no problems in handing it over to the hospital or changing its purpose from school to hospital.

Talking to Dawn, MNA Malik Shakil Awan told Dawn that the district administration had not made the right decision in handing over the school land and building to thehospital and that the government should have acquired land for the expansion of the hospital instead of closing down the girls` school.

`Students of the school had to be moved to other schools near their homes. The school should not have been closed down this way,` he said.

He said he had constructed a building for the children`s ward during his tenure but the hospital administration has still not equipped it with machinery due to shortage of funds. The former MNA said there was no shortage of funds at the hospital and that work was being delayed only due to the lethargic attitude of the administration.

A resident of Mohanpura, Mohammad Azeem said the MC school in Kashmiri Bazaar was near their homes and people preferred sending their children to that school. He said the government was closing down existing schools when it should be opening more. The condition of schools in the city is already bad and they are overcrowded, Mr Azeem said.

A resident of Kashmiri Bazaar, Javed Khan said the government was moving schools from main roads and that this was not the right decision as girls faced problems in going to other localities. He said there was no need for closing the Kashmiri bazaar school because the building and land are still vacant and were not being used by the hospital. He said it was better for girls` schools to be situated on main roads as they were easily accessible.

When asked, DHQ Hospital Medical Superintendent Dr Khalid Randhawa the school`s building and land were handed over to the hospital but the administration had no funds for starting construction work and that the Punjab government will allocate funds for the project in the coming fiscal year as the proposal for it had been sent to Lahore.

He said the hospital building needed to be expanded in order to accommodate more patients. There is a shortage of beds in the emergency and other departments, he added.