The posts include 193 posts of faculty, paramedical and technical staff and 44 posts of administrative and auxiliary staff

The Jammu and Kashmir Government accorded sanction to the creation of 237 posts in various categories to make the hospital operational soon.

According to an official spokesperson, the posts include 193 posts of faculty, paramedical and technical staff and 44 posts of administrative and auxiliary staff. “The construction work on the hospital building at Gandhi Nagar, Jammu, is in the advanced stage of completion. The hospital will help ease patient load on SMGS Hospital and augment the existing healthcare facility for people across the Jammu division,” the spokesperson said.

Pertinently, the then NC-Congress in 2011 had planned to establish a 200-bedded maternity hospital on the premises of the Government Hospital, Gandhi Nagar. The project was scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014-15 but it is yet to be made functional due to faulty planning by the agency concerned and slow funding by the Union Government. The project was aimed at reducing the heavy influx of patients at SMGS Hospital, the lone tertiary care maternity hospital in 10 districts of the Jammu region, which has been bursting at the seams due to lack of infrastructural deficiencies and space crunch.

In 2018, the authorities had found glaring lapses in the design of the project. By that time, the executing agency, the Public Works Department (PWD), had already expended a whopping Rs 43 crore on the project. Official sources said all civil works in the building had been completed but it could not be made functional due to shortage of manpower.