Punjab releases Rs 68.98 crore for upgrading medical colleges

Chandigarh: To upgrade the premier medical colleges in Punjab, the state government has released Rs 68.98 crore to ensure quality medical facilities.

According to a recent report by PTI, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has ordered the immediate release of nearly Rs 69 crore to provide quality treatment and diagnostic facilities to people in the state's medical colleges.

Chairing a review meeting of the Medical Education and Research Department here, Mann said, "Augmenting the facilities in these medical colleges of the state was the need of the hour to ensure quality treatment and diagnostic facilities to the people".

"To equip these medical colleges with hi-end and world class machinery is imperative so that they can serve the patients in a better manner," he said, according to an official statement, quotes PTI.

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The chief minister asked the Medical Education department to immediately release Rs 68.98 crore to the four medical colleges in the state to upgrade the facilities.

He further said that Rs 26.53 crore should be released to Government Medical College Amritsar, Rs 28.51 crore to Government Medical College Patiala, Rs 9.43 crore to Dr B R Ambedkar Institute of Medical Sciences SAS Nagar (Mohali) and Rs 4.51 crore to PGI Satellite Centre, Ferozepur.

"These funds should be duly utilised for development works in the medical colleges along with procuring latest machinery and equipment," he said.

Chief Secretary KAP Sinha, Additional Chief Secretary Alok Shekhar, Principal Secretary Health Kumar Rahul, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Dr Ravi Bhagat were among those present in the meeting.

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In April, Medical Dialogues had reported that More than half of the sanctioned faculty posts and around 84 percent Senior Resident, 83 percent Junior Resident doctors posts in medical colleges under the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), Punjab, were lying vacant, revealed a the report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.

While 51.38 percent sanctioned posts of Professors were vacant, there were a 63.82 percent vacancy for the posts of Associate Professors and 42.68 percent vacancy for the posts of Assistant Professor, revealed the CAG Report on performance audit of Public Health Infrastructure and Management of Health Services.