Owaisi makes a case for new Osmania Hospital building

I have no love for the old building, says the parliamentarian

Hyderabad parliamentarian Asaduddin Owaisi made a case for the construction of a new building at the Osmania General Hospital complex and said that he has “no love” for the old heritage structure.

The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen president was speaking at the inauguration, and foundation laying ceremony of a host of development projects in old city, including the redevelopment of listed-heritage building Sardar Mahal.

“I have no love for the old building. If some conservationist is hurt by this, then let it hurt. There is a need for a new building there. People from several parts of Telangana who are poor get treatment at Osmania Hospital,” Mr Owaisi said.

Designed by Vincent J Esch and completed in 1925, after the 1908 floods and the bubonic plague of 1911, the Osmania General Hospital is a listed heritage Grade II A building. It is one of the five iconic buildings which the architect designed.

“The Osmania Hospital building is an identity marker of the city. While it is broadly considered as constructed in the Indo-Saracenic style of architecture, it is also an example of Osmanian architecture and reflects a certain temperament of the seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan. It has no profuse decoration and additional embellishments. It is one of the five iconic buildings which Esch designed, the others being the Jagirdar’s College, now known as the Hyderabad Public School, the High Court, Kacheguda Railway Station, and City College,” the city’s historian and former Heritage Conservation Committee member Sajjad Shahid said.