Residents welcome agricultural college, support to sugar mills

Tribune News Service

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Gurdaspur, February 29

Residents welcomed the state government’s decision to set up an agricultural college and increase the crushing capacity of the state-owned Batala and Paniyar cooperative sugar mills. The projects were announced in the Budget presented on Friday. They said the move would promote sugarcane farming in the area.

Last week, the government announced a plan to expand the 100-bed Civil Hospital in Babri to a 200 bed one and to set up a medical college. The projects were announced by Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh in his Independence Day in 2017 but these had failed to see the light of the day, either due to paucity of funds or red-tapism.

Raman Bahl, the Chairman of the Punjab Subordinate Services Selection Board (PSSSB), while claiming that the Budget was a milestone in the development of the state, said due care had been taken of all sectors, including agriculture, health and employment generation. “The government has earmarked Rs 12,488 for education which is 8 per cent of the total Budget outlay,” said Bahl whose father, Kushal Bahl, is a former Education Minister.

Cabinet Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, who is from the district, was in the forefront in getting the capacity of the sugar mills enhanced. Sources said the proposal had got mired in red-tapism before the minister intervened and got the roadblocks cleared.

Some residents, however, said the government should have provided funds to relocate the Central Jail from the heart of the city to its outskirts. “The prison should be moved to outside the city limits to decongest the area. The proposed medical college should have been built in the city rather than on the outskirts,” said Manjit Singh Dala, a real estate dealer.

City to get new eye hospital

• Residents got another reason to cheer as Dubai-based construction magnate Surinder Pal Singh Oberoi on Saturday announced that his organisation, Sarbat Da Bhala Charitable Trust, would set up a free eye hospital and a dialysis unit in the city by the next month.
• Oberoi said: “We have already established such projects at all district headquarters, except Gurdaspur. We have now decided to establish the projects within the MC limits of Gurdaspur.”