Shift medical college project to Gurdaspur, not Sangrur: Bajwa

CONG RAJYA SABHA MP WRITES TO CM THAT THE PROJECT WILL BE MORE BENEFICIAL FOR THE BORDER AREAS

CHANDIGARH: Responding to Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh’s directions to health minister Brahm Mohindra to seek shifting of the proposed medical college and hospital in Mohali to Sangrur, Congress Rajya Sabha MP Partap Singh Bajwa has written to the CM requesting him to shift it instead to Gurdaspur district, “a border area which lacks medical facilities”.

The letter says, “Sangrur is 120 kilometres from Chandigarh, which has the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), which has 1,500 beds. It is just 57 kilometres from Patiala which has the Rajindra Hospital with 1,000 beds. It is just 100 kilometres from Bathinda where a new All India Institute of Medical Sceinces (AIIMS) is coming up, which will have 500 to 750 beds and will be fully operational by 2020. Ludhiana too is just 80 kilometres from Sangrur where Dayanand Medical College and Hospital and CMC are located. Sangrur also has a satellite centre of the PGIMER."

The former Gurdaspur MP said the proposed hospital should be shifted to a border district and proposed the towns of Gurdaspur, Batala, Dhariwal or Pathankot. “These towns are on the India-Pakistan border where civilians and armymen have lost lives. Also, they are on the National Highway 1A which connects Pathankot with Srinagar and Amritsar with Mumbai. Also, Pathankot has a domestic airport and Amritsar an international airport,” he said.