Demolition or revamp: 114-yr-old Osmania hospital’s heritage value leaves Telangana in fix

The fate of the 114-year-old majestic building of Osmania General Hospital on the banks of Musi river in Hyderabad hangs in the balance

Hyderabad: The fate of the 114-year-old majestic building of Osmania General Hospital on the banks of Musi river in Hyderabad hangs in balance, as pressure is mounting on the Telangana government to construct a new building for the hospital in view of the precarious condition of the existing structure.

In July 2020, the Telangana government ordered closure of the century-old building of Osmania General Hospital that was inundated due to heavy rain and sewerage water. (Wikimedia Commons)

Telangana health minister T Harish Rao, who held a meeting with higher officials of the medical and health department on July 3, to work out the plan to construct a new building complex for Osmania General Hospital on the existing premises.

The meeting took place hours after state governor Tamilisai Soundararajan visited the hospital and expressed concern over the deteriorating conditions in the building.

Simultaneously, a delegation of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) of Osmania General Hospital met the minister and requested that the government take up the construction works at the earliest as it is unsafe to run the hospital in the existing heritage structure because it is facing the threat of collapse due to heavy rains.

However, the state government is caught in a dilemma on whether it should go in for the construction of the new hospital complex in the land adjacent to the existing building or demolish the present heritage structure which is in a dilapidated condition to build the new one in its place.

On July 23, 2015, chief minster K Chandrashekhar Rao visited OGH building and expressed concern over the safety of the patients in the dilapidated structure. He announced a plan to demolish the building to build an ultra-modern hospital complex in its place.

This sparked strong protests from heritage activists and conservationists, who moved the high court to stall the proposal. Following a direction from the court, the government appointed an expert committee to study the structural stability and safety study of the heritage building.

“We presented a comprehensive report to the government over its safety. The heritage structure is structurally safe and if conserved properly, it can be maintained for some more decades,” Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) convenor P Anuradha Reddy, who was part of the committee, said.

The committee suggested that the new building complex could be constructed in the adjacent area which is around 25 acres by removing other buildings like residential quarters, nursing hostels etc. “The heritage structure can be renovated and restored. It can be used as an outpatient block,” Anuradha Reddy said.

The health minister told the delegation of Osmania Hospital junior doctors that the government would file an affidavit in the high court shortly and take permission from the same on the construction of a new building on the OGH campus. “He told us that only if necessary, the government would go in for demolition with the court permission,” a junior doctor said on condition of anonymity.

Anuradha Reddy said they would wait for the government to take a decision and then, if there is any proposal to demolish the heritage structure, they would move the court again.

The Osmania General Hospital is one of the oldest and largest hospitals in India constructed during the Nizam’s period. It originally started as an Afzal Gunj hospital in 1866 by Salar Jung-I, the then Prime Minister of Hyderabad during the regime of Sixth Nizam Mahbub Ali Khan.

The present hospital building was taken up in 1.5 acres of land in an area sprawling 26.5 acres, by the Seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan and was completed in 1919. It was designed by British architect Vincent Jerome Esch and Nawab Khan Bahadur Mirza Akbar Baig in Indo-Sarcenic style. In 1926, the wards of the Afzal Gunj hospital were transferred to the new building.

The hospital structure is graded as a II-B Heritage Building in Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Association (HMDA) listing and is protected under the Heritage Regulations of HMDA.

Over the years, the building had been subject to neglect due to lack of periodical renovation and maintenance, resulting in incidents of falling roof and seepage of drainage and rainwater into the building.

In July 2020, the Telangana government on Wednesday ordered closure of the century-old building of Osmania General Hospital that was inundated with rain and sewerage water and all the patients were shifted to the other two buildings of the OGH. The old building is now being used as a pathway for doctors to access the parking lot.