Medical Corporation storing drugs in unsafe structures

Srinagar, Jan 26: The J&K Medical Supplies Corporation (JKMSCL) has been storing drugs in unhygienic and flood-prone buildings, with its regional warehouse still incomplete.
With a similar regional warehouse for Jammu at Nagrota completed more than a year ago, the corporation’s warehouse for Kashmir, undertaken simultaneously with its Jammu counterpart at Bemina five years ago, is still incomplete, the JKMSCL insiders said.
The warehouse at uptown Barzulla, where part of supplies of the JKMSCL in the valley is stored in a structure badly damaged by the 2014 deluge, puts the supplies stored there at risk, said a JKMSCL insider.
While the JKMSCL used to store some supplies in another warehouse at Government Medical College Srinagar, the college authorities, citing renovation, the insider said, made the corporation to vacate the warehouse in mid-2017, forcing the JKMSCL to shift the supplies to the regional warehouse at Bemina still under construction.
At the Bemina warehouse, however, far from being kept under sophisticated conditions, one can imagine the fate of the supplies with only two out of proposed multi-stories of the building completed so far.
Besides, a few JKMSCL staffers stationed at the under-construction building are craving for a portable water supply.
Over the incompletion of the Bemina warehouse, the JKMSCL passed the buck to the Jammu and Kashmir Projects Construction Corporation (JKPCC), the executing body of the project.
While the estimated cost of the project was relatively lower at the outset, General Manager JKMSCL, Dr Iqbal, told The Kashmir Monitor that despite cost enhancements for constructing the Bemina warehouse from time to time, the JKPCC has failed to complete it.
Over the matter, Commissioner Secretary Health and Medical Education, Pawan Kotwal, said, “The delay was because we have revised the project”.
“The cost of the project was Rs 7 crore originally, which we have released, but we took a decision later on to accommodate the regional corporate office of the corporation also in the building,” he said.
“I have told the Managing Director JKPCC to complete the construction in earnest, so that it is commissioned soon. He has assured to finish the construction quickly.”
He said it may take another six months.