Since 2016, Nurpur BMO’s office has been divided between Kamnala and Gangath due to a lack of space

Although the office of the Nurpur Block Medical Officer (BMO) was moved in March 2016 from Gangath in the nearby Indora subdivision to Kamnala near Jassur, it continues to operate in part from the Civil Hospital, Gangath premises.

With the exception of the BMO’s Kamnala administrative office, departmental operations are still carried out out of the distant Civil Hospital in Gangath. Since 1986, the BMO office in Nurpur has operated out of Gangath, Indora. Two BMO offices were operating out of the Kangra district’s Indora Assembly constituency prior to being moved from Gangath to Nurpur.

The Chief Pharmacist and the Block Health Supervisor, who compile field reports on medical operations for all Primary Health Centers (PHCs), Community Health Centers (CHCs), and health subcenters under the Nurpur medical block, continue to work out of the Gangath hospital, according to official information.

At the Gangath building, the vaccinations needed for pregnant moms and newborns are still kept in storage.

The transfer of these amenities to the PHC in Nurpur is demanded. On March 6, 2016, then-Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur moved the office space from Gangath to the PHC building space built in Jaspur under the administration of Virbhadra Singh.

But for more than five and a half years, the office was listed in state Health Department records as BMO, Gangath.

From a single facility in Kamnala, successive state administrations have failed to provide the infrastructure needed to make the BMO office fully operational.

In response to popular requests, the former Jairam-led administration renamed the office from BMO, Gangath, to BMO, Nurpur, on August 3, 2022, after approval in a cabinet meeting. A fully functional BMO office in the Nurpur region has been hampered by the management of the administrative office of the BMO from Kamnala (Nurpur) and supporting offices from Gangath (Indora).

On April 1, 2012, local MLA Rakesh Pathania laid the cornerstone of PHC, Jassur, in Kamnala. The BMO office had been operating out of the facility even though it had been officially opened as a PHC. According to inquiries, a Kamnala village resident provided land for the PHC’s development in Jassur. The PHC operates out of a leased facility held by the Nurpur panchayat samiti in Jassur, whereas the structure constructed on this property is now the BMO’s office.

The BMO office building is still listed in the official state health department records as the Jassur PHC due to technological issues. The Nurpur BMO oversees one civil hospital, one CHC, nine PHCs, and twenty-six health subcenters.

While verifying the move of the BMO office to the PHC building in Jaspur, Nurpur Block Medical Officer Dilwar Singh said that the state health officials were knowledgeable about this matter.