Medical/dental colleges: NA body discusses issue relating to seats for erstwhile Fata students

The National Assembly Standing Committee on States and Frontier Regions (Safron) on Tuesday discussed the issue of doubling of seats for erstwhile Fata students in medical/dental colleges across the country as approved by the cabinet in March.

The committee which met here with MNA Sajid Khan in chair was told by Secretary Pakistan Medical Commission (PMC) that the notification of 136 seats in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has already been issued.

He said the increase of seats in other provinces is still awaited as the universities have not submitted their inspection forms to the PMC yet.

He said that he is personally in touch with the vice chancellors of the universities in the provinces and hopefully the inspection forms will be received to the Pakistan Medical Commission by this week.

The committee directed the secretary PMC to issue the notification regarding doubling of seats in the other provinces within two or three days in order to save the future of Fata students and they may get admission in the medical colleges from the current session.

The chief engineer Construction & Works Department, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa gave presentation on the development schemes in erstwhile Fata.

The members showed their reservations on the development schemes in erstwhile Fata and observed that the development schemes selection/district-wise distribution is not done on merit and public representatives were not consulted on these development schemes.

The committee recommended to the chief engineer Construction & Works Department Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to arrange meeting in the Planning and Development Department for the committee members with the secretary C&W to discuss the development schemes in the merged districts under the Accelerated Implementation Programme (AIP).

The committee was briefed by the representative from Tesco department on the development schemes in merged areas in detail.

After detailed briefing, the committee recommended that the load shedding hours may be reduced and Tesco should make better arrangements for uninterrupted supply of electricity in the merged areas.

The committee further recommended the construction work on the proposed/approved feeders in tribal districts may be expedited in order to complete the said feeders within the stipulated time.

The committee also recommended that per unit rates of electricity may be subsidized in erstwhile Fata for domestic and commercial users.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019