SAHIWAL: The Punjab government has allocated 361 kanal 12 marla piece of land for the Okara Medical College near village 22/2-L, Renalakhurd tehsil.

Sahiwal Commissioner Shoaib Iqbal told Dawn the OMC proposal had been under consideration for the last 18 months but the main hindrance was the availability of state land for the mega project. Now, he said, the government had selected a piece of land near Rena.

Shoaib Iqbal said the divisional administration had directed the buildings department to develop PC-1 for the project.

Once completed, OMC would be the second public sector medical college in the division after the Sahiwal Medical College which was set up in 2010. The Sahiwal

DHQ Hospital was upgraded and made SMC teaching hospital with more than 1,000 beds capacity.

Later, it was determined that the SMC alone could not cater to the needs of the 6.7 million Sahiwal division population. The commissioner has ensured that the requisition for funds for the mega project was included in the 2024-25 fiscal.

Published in Dawn, September 25th, 2023