OP Soni holds meeting over autonomous status to GMC

Tribune News Service

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Amritsar, January 12

A meeting of the high-powered committee to grant autonomous status to Government Medical College (GMC) here was on Sunday conducted to discuss improvement in basic infrastructure of the institute. The meeting was attended by Medical Education and Research Minister Om Parkash Soni, Secretary, Medical Education, DK Tiwari, Adviser to CM Dr KK Talwar, college principal Dr Sujata Sharma, SDM Shivraj Singh Bal, Civil Surgeon Prabhdeep Kaur, advisory committee members Dr VP Lakhanpal, Avinash Mahindru, Dr Hardas Singh, Dr BL Goel, Dr Ravi Saini, advocate Kanwar Rajinder Singh, Medical Superintendent Dr JS Kular and others.

OP Soni said the government had planned to improve the overall infrastructure at the college, which is the country’s one of the oldest medical education institutes. He said the government would provide sufficient funds to the college. The financial powers of the administrators would be increased so that they could manage the affairs on their own without waiting for the approval from higher-ups.

Soni asked the college authorities to conduct a meeting of the advisory committee after every 15 days so that the process of upgrading the institute was expedited. He said the advisory committee members, most of whom are retired as senior doctors from the institute, should come forward with suggestions so that no problems were faced in future.

Soni said a committee would be constituted to make purchases on behalf of the college so that needs of the patients were fulfilled at the earliest. The minister also learned about the problems at the institute from faculty members.

The employees at the college, including faculty members, had earlier opposed the proposal to grant autonomous status to the institute saying that the government was trying to pull out from public health services. The employees had also staged a protest.

However, at present when the meeting was conducted locally, employees associations have not yet come up with an action plan. The employees had demanded that if the government wanted to give the college an autonomous status it should ensure that budgetary provisions for finance were made. A member of faculty said, “It is no secret that college cannot generate enough resources to manage its affairs. The associations would surely discuss and take a pro-institute and pro-people stand.”