ISLAMABAD, Feb 7: The government on Wednesday said it had no plan to build a five star hotel and a shopping plaza on Jinnah Post-graduate Medical Centre (JPMC) land in Karachi.

A health ministry spokesman said the new block of three high rise buildings to be constructed at JPMC was planned as a replacement for the existing barracks and old dwellings in which the 1,100 bed hospital was housed since independence.

The existing departments and the wards of the hospital will be moved into the new high rise blocks once they were completed.

He said Karachi with a population of nearly 15 million with many more millions coming from interior Sindh and Balochistan needed thousands of additional hospital beds with allied facilities. “The proposed buildings are a step in that direction,” he remarked.

The spokesman denied allegations that the ministry in collusion with builders mafia and big businessmen was planning to build a shopping plaza and hotel on JPMC land after the Elite Plaza was complete.