Fazilka, Punjab: Punjab Health Minister Laxmi Kanta Chawla wrote on her blog a few weeks back about the limited access to medicines and milk vis-à-vis alcohol in the state.
A government dispensary at Raana has been bearing out this fact since 2003 and no one has noticed.
The health centre has been a bar for years now and dispenses alcohol in place of medicine. It even doubles up as a gambling den.
Cases of liquor are stocked up and served unabashedly. At T the entrance to the consulting room, an untidy scribble shows the way to `Mannu Bar’, as it is better known now.
An HT team that visited the centre, 11 km from Fazilka, found a roomful of sealed cartons of branded liquor, which was locked, and groups of men play- ing cards while they consumed liquor. “Is health centre mein har marz ka illaj hota hai, magar dawa se nahin daru se (At this health centre there’s a cure for every ailment),“ remarked Succha Singh, a villager. Succha purchased and knocked back alcohol in the presence of the visiting scribes.
Villagers say the liquor vend has been located in the dis- pensary premises since 2003.
They made repeated complaints during both the Congress party and SAD-BJP governments, but it was not shifted.
Liquor contractors had squatted on the building just two years after it was inaugurated in 2001. “Since then, it has been serving as a liquor godown and a bar,“ said Bhagvandeep Singh.
Ferozepur Civil Surgeon Dr Dalip Kumar, however, shrugged off blame saying that the building, which was built and inaugurated as a primary subsidiary health centre, was never handed over to the department.
“No doctor or paramedical staff were ever posted there,“ he said, adding that under the circumstances, the department could not be held responsible for any misuse.
A worker at `Mannu Bar’, who wouldn’t give out his name, said since the building was never occupied by any government department, the locals stole sanitary fittings, the water motor, even the window panes and doors. “Since the day we moved in, no theft has been reported,“ he said, laying out the upside.
The locals feel the bar is a nuisance. It is located in vicin- ity of the gurdwara and women devotes are wary. “It’s a den of drunks past sundown and one cannot think of taking this road. We have taken up the matter with authorities in Fazilka several times,“ said an elderly woman, Karmi Devi.
