RAWALPINDI: The Raheel Sharif Medical College in the Chaklala Cantonment Board (CCB) has been renamed the Cantonment Institute of Medical Sciences after work on the construction of the institute began.

The CCB is the executing agency for the Rs550 million project. The institute is being built on 30 kanals of land adjacent to Ayub National Park on the directives of Military Lands and Cantonments.

Development funds have been acquired from the federal government for the project.

A senior CCB official told Dawn that the institute was going to be set up on the premises of the Cantonment General Hospital in Saddar with the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board as the executing agency.

That idea was rejected by Military Lands and Cantonments which wanted the medical college to be built in the CCB area, he said.

The official added that elected CCB members wanted to use six kanals of slaughterhouse land in Lal Kurti, but Military Lands and Cantonments rejected that proposal and the CCB decided to use empty land near Gulistan Colony.

He said funds for the institute were released after the PC-I was completed and the CCB began working on the project.

The official said the name initially proposed for the institute in 2016 was Raheel Sharif Medical College, in tribute of the then outgoing chief of army staff (COAS). The RCB had decided on Nov 25 that a medical college named after Mr Sharif would be built in its limits.

The decision was made at a board meeting chaired by Station Commander Brig Hassan Raza and attended by then cantonment executive officer Dr Saima Shah, RCB vice president Malik Munir and elected members.

CCB Vice President Raja Irfan Imtiaz said the name was changed to the Cantonment Institute of Medical Sciences by Military Lands and Cantonments and not the CCB.

Published in Dawn, September 23rd, 2019