Committed to improving healthcare: Capt

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, September 25

Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh said here today that his government was committed to improving infrastructure in the key sectors of health and education despite inheriting a poor fiscal condition from the previous rulers.

Addressing a select gathering of healthcare luminaries at the launch of The Tribune coffee table book, Doyens of Healthcare, Capt Amarinder expressed confidence that his government would succeed in bringing the state out of the mess.

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“Even after 70 years of Independence, 24,000 primary schools in the state don’t have basic amenities such as benches and toilets. Public health centres are also in bad shape,” he said, adding that the government intended to rechristen health centres as primary healthcare centres to facilitate early scanning of ailments in children and a basic check-up of the people once or twice a year.

He said the government was striving to ensure that Punjab’s education system came on a par with that of states such as Himachal Pradesh and healthcare rivalled that of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

Capt Amarinder, who presented excellence awards to several healthcare experts, said the government was investing in the Patiala and Amritsar medical colleges, besides setting up a new one in Mohali to boost healthcare.

Stressing the need for a medical college in Malwa, the CM said his government was keen on setting up more high-end medical institutions.

Earlier, welcoming the CM, The Tribune Editor-in-Chief Harish Khare said the people of Punjab had reasonable expectations from Capt Amarinder. Khare said the criticism while reporting about the CM and his work often emanated from the hope that being a person with a sense of public responsibility and personal integrity, he would do something about it.

The Tribune General Manager Vinay Verma and senior members of the newspaper’s editorial and marketing sections were also present.