Chandigarh, July 11 (IANS) The Punjab government on Monday gave consent to create 25 additional seats each in Government Medical Colleges of Patiala and Faridkot, state Medical Education and Research Minister Chetan Singh Jauremajra said here.
He said the government led by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has the firm resolve to improve health and education sector, the core areas of concern due to which the government has decided to create additional seats in both medical colleges.
Efforts are underway to open a medical college in every district.
The authorities were directed to commence classes in Medical Colleges of Hoshiarpur, Kapurthala and Sangrur from next year.
Free medicines should be provided to patients in the hospitals of the medical colleges as early as possible, he added.
Making an announcement in a video message, he said the Aam Aadmi Party government's scheme is aimed at providing good quality ration 'atta' (wheat flour) and 'daal' (pulses) to the people packed in clean gunny bags.
About 105.14 lakh farmers have been benefited with an MSP value of Rs 1,45,358.13 crore, government data showed. Apart from Punjab (1,87,28,335 MT) and Chhattisgarh (92,01,000 MT), the other top paddy procurement states included Telangana (70,22,000 MT), Uttar Pradesh (65,53,029 MT) Odisha (57,16,134), Haryana (55,30,596), Madhya Pradesh (45,82,610), and Bihar (44,90,319 MT).
The bank employees organised demonstrations, sit-in protests, processions and rallies near their workplaces in different cities and towns protesting against the privatisation of banks undertaken by the Centre.
While complimenting the enforcement officers, he said their hands-on approach has led to large number of seizures in the state of fake and smuggled goods. He was speaking at an interactive session by FICCI CASCADE on the 'Strategies' to combat smuggling and counterfeiting, here.
Cheema was responding the Centre's decision on new rules governing the Chandigarh Administration employees, who are currently working under the Punjab service rules but will now come under the Central Civil Services Rules.
Reacting strongly to the announcement by Union Home Minister Amit Shah to bring Chandigarh union territory employees under Central civil services rules, the SAD said, "It is incumbent on the AAP government to make the Centre understand that Chandigarh is a union territory as per an ad-hoc arrangement only.