CM lays stone of 3rd medical college in Doaba in three years
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Sunday laid the foundation stone of a new medical college at Barnala Kalan village in Nawanshahr — third such project initiated in the state’s Doaba region in the past three years.
Named as Shaheed Bhagat Singh Government Medical College, it will come up at a cost of about Rs 300 crore and will offer 50 MBBS seats.
According to an official statement, the Doaba region got its third medical college within 36 months.
Earlier, Mann had laid stones of two colleges in Hoshairpur and Kapurthala. The statement said the new college will be attached to the District Civil Hospital, which currently lacks specialised medical facilities. With the establishment of the medical college, specialist doctors will be available round-the-clock, it added.
The college will have departments of surgery, paediatrics, orthopaedics and gynaecology. Advanced medical equipment and technology will be introduced to improve patient care.
A declaration regarding the new college was made by the Chief Minister during his address at a state-level event to mark the martyrdom day of freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar at Khatkar Kalan.
Khatkar Kalan is the ancestral village of Bhagat Singh.
The freedom fighters were executed by the British colonial government at Lahore Central Jail in undivided India on March 23, 1931.
Speaking on the medical college project, Mann said it was a long-pending demand of the area as local residents till now had been forced to visit hospital as far as Ludhiana, Jalandhar or Chandigarh for treatment.
The CM said SBS Nagar (Nawanshahr) is a remote district with limited access to tertiary healthcare facilities as successive governments ignored the region.
The CM also paid tributes at the martyrs’ memorial in Khatkar Kalan.
Hundreds of posters of the CM and AAP dotted the area surrounding the memorial. He also felicitated family members of the Bhagat Singh.
The Chief Minister was accompanied by Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan, various members of his Cabinet, MLAs and AAP leaders.
CM skips mention of police crackdown on state farmers
While the police crackdown on farmers did not find mention in Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s address, he referred to cash found at the home of a Delhi High Court judge.
Wads of cash were allegedly found at Justice Yashwant Sharma’s home following a fire incident there on March 14.
Bhagat Singh’s soul must have been pained at this, he said.
“A judge’s house caught fire and Rs 15 crore was gutted. Now they’re counting threads (embedded in currency notes) to ascertain how many (notes) were there. When one sees such things, one wonders how many people’s decisions must have been wrongly taken. True tribute (to martyrs) is if we do our work with honesty,” he said.
Ministers visit Hussainiwala
Ferozepur: Punjab Ministers Baljit Kaur and Gurmeet Singh Khudian on Sunday paid tributes to freedom fighters Bhagat Singh, Shivaram Rajguru and Sukhdev Thapar at Hussainiwala. Family members of Rajguru brought soil from his native place in Pune and placed it at the memorial to the martyrs. -- OC
