VIZIANAGARAM: Taking exception to the Opposition criticism of changing the name of Vizianagaram Government General Hospital, Deputy Assembly Speaker Kolagatla Veerabhadra Swamy said the name ‘Maharaja’ was never associated with the GGH.
Speaking to media persons on Saturday, Kolagatla, who is also Vizianagaram MLA, alleged that TDP was politicising the issue when Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy is making all-out efforts to revamp the medical infrastructure in the State and set up a new medical college in Vizianagaram.
Explaining the facts about the GGH, he said the then Chief Minister NT Rama Rao laid the foundation stone for the hospital in 1983. The hospital was inaugurated by NTR in 1988. The GGH did not have the name ‘Maharaja’ at that time.
“Even in the government orders issued in February 2019 by the then TDP government sanctioning government medical college for Vizianagaram, there was no mention of ‘Maharaja’. “Why the Opposition TDP is making it an issue now?” he questioned.
Elaborating further, he said there was a hospital by the name Maharaja Hospital when Vizianagaram was not a district. Later, the GGH was constructed on government land. However, the name Maharaja hospital continued and no one had questioned it out of respect for former king PVG Raju, he said.
Contesting the claim of P Ashok Gajapathi Raju of TDP that the land where the GGH was constructed belongs to his family, the Deputy Speaker said it was totally false. He dared the former Union minister to show evidence that the land belongs to his family and clarified that not an inch of the hospital land was private.
As a former Union minister in the NDA government, Ashok did nothing for the development of Vizianagaram, he deplored. Once the medical college comes up, facilities in the GGH will be further improved. The GGH will be upgraded as a 500-bed hospital with more specialities, he added.