Land dispute puts Dental College Hospital into uncertainty
Mahbuba Zannat
The fate of a 200-bed hospital of Dhaka Dental College has become uncertain as Dhaka City Corporation has claimed a portion of the land on which the hospital is being built."We met the city mayor last month to draw his attention about the problem and he assured us of holding a meeting with the city corporation to resolve the problem," said principal of the college Kazi Mehedih ul Alam. Although the mayor has formed a committee to visit the land, submit a report to him and asked DCC to maintain status quo, the college autho-rities fear that DCC may atte-mpt to demolish the under-construction hospital building. Sources said the problem arose as the Public Works Dep-artment has given the same land to the Dental College and the DCC. Claiming the land, DCC has already announced to remove a portion of the under-construction building at Mirpur. "The Public Works Depart-ment handed over the land to the college in 1990 and we started construction work in 1991. But now we are facing difficulties to keep the land as the department has allotted a portion of the land to DCC," said the principal. A notice signed by DCC chief estate officer was issued in October last year, asking the college authorities to remove the installation. It was mentioned in the notice that the boundary of the college and DCC was settled in July 2005. Since its establishment, the country's only specialised Dental College and Hospital has been facing the land dispute. The college authori-ties built a temporary boun-dary wall which was demoli-shed by the DCC in September 2005. Besides, the college land has now been occupied by some PWD staff," said Dr Shariful Islam, head of the department of children, at the hospital. "We went to the local MP, but the problem could not be solved. Now we have to remove the installation for which already Tk 15 crore has been spent. Our 6.78 acres of land has now decreased to five acres," he said. The college principal has submitted a letter to the health secretary requesting him to take necessary steps to put up boundary walls and prevent the college's land. "Though the city corpora-tion remains silent after receiving the directive of the mayor, it could attempt to remove the installation any time," said a teacher of the college.
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