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PESHAWAR, May 22: NWFP Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani has directed the authorities concerned to make efforts for provision of facilities to the Gomal Medical College (GMC), Dera Ismail Khan, so that the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) could recognize it, health officials said.
The directives were issued at a meeting presided over by the chief minister on May 17. Provincial assembly members Anwar Kamal Marwat, Nasreen Khattak and Hamid Shah, principals of the Khyber Medical College and the GMC, education planning officer, health additional secretary and two students of the GMC attended the meeting.
The GMC started functioning in 1998 but owing to lack of facilities the PMDC is yet to recognize it. Having 250 students, half of them on self-finance basis, the college lacks building, equipment, library, laboratories, teachers and hostel facilities.
During the last inspection, PMDC officials said it fell short of the requirements to be called a medical college.
The chief minister directed the planning officer of the education department to hand over the building of the Sherazi Girls School to the GMC, rent a building for the school and include the scheme for construction of the building in the next Annual Development Programme.
He also directed the health department officials to ensure the purchase of equipment in the shortest possible time after fulfilling the required formalities.
Mr Durrani issued directives regarding the upgradation of the library at the GMC and asked the official concerned to take up the case for the required funds with the finance department.
He promised provision of two buses from the warehouse of the excise and taxation department. He ordered that a building should be acquired on rent for the hostel.
As the final year students were about to complete their courses, the chief minister promised to accommodate the first batch of the graduates for house job in hospitals here.
He asked the health department to approach the finance department to get requisitioned Rs225,000 for PMDC inspection.
WARNING: Mr Durrani warned that any attempt to undermine his government would be resisted by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal workers.
“My government is strong and stable. Ours is an ideological government and if any attempt is to be made to weaken it, our workers will react sharply,” he told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
The chief minister was asked to comment on his recent statements wherein he had sounded similar warnings against turning the ‘majority of the MMA into a minority.’
“When I made those comments I was referring to past governments which were undermined through similar tactics. But the difference is that ours is an ideological government whereas the past governments had no such basis.”
