Churachandpur Medical College: Inaugurated in Jan, portion blown off in April

REPORTED BY MK HENRY

In January this year, Union Home Minister Amit Shah inaugurated the Churachandpur Medical College amid a lot of fanfare. People of Churachandpur were happy that they finally got a medical college and their children would no longer have to travel far from home to study medicine and become doctors.

But it just took three months and one single storm to blow off a large portion of the College building and significantly damage the building. A large portion of the building looks completely battered and bruised – portions of the walls and ceiling blown off, electrical wirings dangling dangerously.

Built at a cost of Rs 46 crore, the medical college now looks more like a plundered and ravaged building while some portions of it looks squeaky clean and new.

Walls of the library in the academic blocks (main building) on the third floor was blown away. Not just this, a portion of the wall in the backyard blown off too.

Walls of the emergency medicine blocks were also blown away causing damage to the ceilings and other structures and in this section, located at the second floor.

Director of the Churachandpur Medical College and Hospital, S. Iboyaima took stock of the damage caused by the tropical storm that hit Manipur last night.

Speaking to the media, the Director said that he had witnessed gaps in the structures which according to him had led to more damages by blowing off the walls as well as the ceilings. It may be mentioned that the building is a pre- fabricated structure and weightless walls.

Keystone Infra Construction Company Ltd, the construction company responsible for the construction of the building said that there was no compromise of any kind during the construction of the building.

One of the engineers who was engaged in the construction work said that necessary steps have been taken up to replace the damaged structures at the earliest. He assured that such things will never happen in the future.

But questions are being asked about the construction quality and if the government will take action against those responsible for such poor quality construction and if a major tragedy was averted as there was no one inside the building when the storm hit.