LAHORE, July 26 The number of seats for NWFP students in medical colleges of Punjab as well as scholarships for talented students will be increased out of the Punjab Education Endowment Fund.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said this while talking to position-holder students of the NWFP, currently on a study tour of Punjab, at the Chief Minister's Secretariat on Sunday.

Secretaries of the Higher Education & Schools, the secretary information, vice-chancellors of Punjab University and Lahore College for Women and the Lahore division commissioner were also present.

He said that inter-provincial visits could play an important role in removing differences and misunderstandings, and he was thankful to the NWFP chief minister who sent the delegation of talented students to Punjab at his request.

Mr Shahbaz said the students achieved positions due to the hard work and the prayers of their parents.

He said that a state-of-the-art hospital would be set up in Swat which would be a gift from the people of Punjab to their brethren of the NWFP.

He said the Punjab Educational Endowment Fund had been established with seed money of Rs4 billion and an amount of Rs3 billion would be added to it each year.

He said the purpose of establishment of the fund was to enable the poor but talented students to continue their studies.

The chief minister further said that extremism and militancy could be rooted out through elimination of ignorance and unemployment, supremacy of law and provision of socio-economic justice.

Expressing their views, the visiting students said their study tour to Punjab had been very successful and productive.

Meanwhile, the chief minister also announced providing four ambulances of the Punjab Health Department to the Mardan Health Department for extending medical facilities to Swat affectees staying in camps there.

He revealed this during a meeting with NWFP Chief Minister Muhammad Azam Khan Hoti at the Chief Minister's Secretariat.