Medical shops refuse to vacate from Gandhi Hospital

Secunderabad: No tender has been invited for new medical shops on the Gandhi Hospital premises for the past 16 years. Ever since the hospital was established at Bowenpally, one can find the same old medical shops ruling for the past 18 years. As per the rules, the tenders should be quoted for every two years.

The present owners of the private medical shops refuse to evict the place even after being issued notices from the Superintendent office. Meanwhile, one of the staff members of the Account Section is favouring the shop owners by charging money from them. On the other hand, the owners filed a case against the agreement to extend their time period. The agreement says any private medical shop should vacate the place once the two-year contract has been completed. According to sources, these three medical shops on hospital premises are continuing their business by managing internal staff of the Account Section. 

With court stay in hand and the support of the Account Section, these three medical shops that include Tirumala, Sri Sai and GP are now trying to renew their period to at least 10 years. “We have given notices to the three medical shops and have asked them to vacate but they filed a case in the court and brought stay. This has tied my hands. I know that there must be an employee of the hospital administration encouraging them to continue their business by charging money,” said P Sravan Kumar, Superintendent. “We pay rental charges on time and with good business here, we want to extend our time period and hence filed a case in the court,” said Ramesh, owner of GP Medical Services.

On the condition of anonymity, an official, said, “The owners of the medical shop give bribe to one of the staffs in the Account Section department to manage and the court stay is a method to stop the administration to take action against them.”  Srinivas Gupta, owner of Tirumala Medical Shop has to pay rental dues about Rs 40 lakh to the hospital. 

The officials said that after sending several notices to owner, he paid Rs 60 lakh and more Rs 40 lakh to be paid. He denies paying the amount and approached the court for seeking renewal. “He pays the quoted amount in the tender every month and refuses to pay the 10% hike which is added to the quoted amount every year. He still pays Rs 1,20,000 every month instead of Rs 2,54,000,” said the Superintendent. 

BY Sushma Nagaraju