By Sandeep Mishra
Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, Dec 27: Just think it over. The food you are consuming was cooked in a toilet. This is exactly what is happening to the poor seeking cheap food and approaching the hotels on the Utility Complex of the Capital Hospital here.
A few hoteliers have been allotted stalls on the Utility Complex of the hospital where they are supposed to run eateries to provide meals and breakfast to the escorts of patients and visitors at cheaper rates. However, due to space constraints they have not only encroached upon public toilets, but also turned them into kitchens.
True, the local hoteliers offer food cheaper. A full meal costs less than Rs 30 here which is rare to find in a city like Bhubaneswar. This has attracted the poor towards the complex.
“Although the food here is not that good, the price and flexibility of the hotels attract us to have our food here. There are no other hotels near the hospital,” said Arabind Sahu, a relative of a patient. In a bid to bring all utility shops under one umbrella, the hospital administration has built the Utility Complex on its premises last year. The administration had allotted stalls to medicine shops and a few others to set up their business. A few hotels and variety shops have come up on the premises, but owners of medicine stores have declined to go there, citing ‘unhygienic conditions.’
“We have been asked to move into the complex, but if we move there, our medicines will get destroyed due to the prevailing conditions. We have repeatedly complained to the hospital authorities to look into the matter, but nothing has been done,’’ said a medicine shop owner.
