IEP Chandigarh, June 16 

Taking a leap forward towards further imparting quality health service to the people of state, the Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann on Friday announced to launch a special project for strengthening of all Secondary Health Care Institutions viz. Community Health Centres (CHCs), Sub-Divisional Hospitals and District Hospitals. Chairing a meeting here to review the health care sector, the Chief Minister said that the state government has already given a major boost to primary healthcare services by opening more than 500 Aam Aadmi Clinics in the State. He said that these clinics are acting as cornerstone in providing free of cost health services to people. Bhagwant Mann said that lakhs of people are daily getting benefit of these clinics through free diagnosis, treatment and clinical tests. The Chief Minister said that moving a step further the state government has now decided to spruce up the infrastructure in government secondary healthcare institutes across the state. He said that the sole aim is to ensure that the general public gets quality health services too without shelving huge money from their pockets. Bhagwant Mann said that these centres will be developed as ultra-modern healthcare institutes where people will get quality treatment. The Chief Minister said that the blueprint for modernisation of these centres has already been prepared to ensure that this work is executed in a time bound manner. He said that the entire work will be conducted by spending more than Rs 400 crores for which adequate provisioning has been made.  Bhagwant Mann said that in the first phase Secondary Health Care Facilities i.e District Hospitals, Sub Divisional Hospitals and CHCs in bigger rural areas will be strengthened on priority. The Chief Minister said that 40 such facilities including 23 District Hospitals have been identified by the state government which will be given a facelift in the first phase. He said that the Department of Finance shall accordingly provide the requisite budgetary support for strengthening/upgrading these facilities. Bhagwant Mann said that the state government is committed to ensure that this work is accorded top priority and no stone is left unturned for it in larger public interest.

IEP Chandigarh, June 16

          BEYOND THE TRAPPINGS OF OFFICE, A CIVIL SERVANT’S JOURNEY IN PUNJAB, a memoir by Rajan Kashyap, former Chief Secretary and Ex Chief Information Commissioner (CIC) of Punjab, was released at Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration, Sector – 26 today by former Chief Justice of Allahabad High Court Mr. S.S. Sodhi and Mr. Gurbachan Jagat, ex- Governor of Manipur.

          The book describes the growth story of the state, and the important events and leaders who shaped the unprecedented development of Punjab over half a century. The Author Mr. Rajan Kashyap joined the IAS in 1965 and retired as Chief Secretary in 2003 after a long and illustrious career spanning 38 years.

          In a lively interaction on the occasion, Professor BN Goswamy, who had joined the IAS in the 1950s and left soon to pursue a career in academics, shared interesting anecdotes on the work ethic of that era.

          Brigadier Sukhjit Singh presented an interesting picture of governance in the erstwhile state of Kapurthala while also emphasizing that perfection as such doesn’t exist. What is needed is to continue to work harder and much harder. 

          Sanjeev Chopra, former Director of Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy of Administration, Mussoorie, brought out how the civil servants of today are becoming more professional. He quoted the Former Finance Minister of India C.D. Deshmukh and said that the civil servants must write about events as they are participants in History. 

          In his reflections, Rajan Kashyap underlined how the things have gone sea change in comparison to the past. Batting for the positive approach, he advocated a very close coordination between the civil servants and the police, a sentiment which was echoed by Mr. S.S. Sodhi and Mr. Gurbachan Jagat.

          The Former Education Secretary (Government of India) Vibha Puri Das said that the human considerations must be supreme in the discharge of bureaucratic functions. 

          The Director General MGSIPA, Mr. Anirudh Tiwari said that better Human Resource Management, Skill specific training apart from the eternal values of compassion, empathy, justice and fairplay are very important. The event was compeered by the Former IAS Officer Mr. Vivek Atray.

IEP Chandigarh

To ensure that all passport verifications are completed within 15 days, the Punjab Governor and Chandigarh Administrator Banwarilal Purohit on Friday launched ‘mPassport’, a mobile application of Chandigarh police. He also announced that four more services, including employee verification, character verification, tenant verification and servant verification, would be made available online through the mobile application of Chandigarh police, ‘e-Sathi’.In the statement, UT Police official said that the ‘e-Sathi’ app has already been offering 11 online services including parking stickers for senior citizens, lodging of e-FIRs, lodging of complaints of missing objects etc.‘mPassport’ was created by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and has been linked to the Regional Passport Offices (RPOs) throughout the country. It will make the entire verification proceeding paperless, he added.The official further said, “Today, Chandigarh Police adopted the „mPassport Police APP‟, a unified platform for all passport verifications in UT Chandigarh, which were earlier being done through paper mode, but will now be done through online mode.”He further said that the main aim and objective of mPassport Police App is to provide passport related services to the Indian Citizens in a speedy, convenient and transparent manner. So, today “mPassport Police App” is launched to provide a wide variety of services to Smartphone users and now onwards the whole process of the passport verification would be paperless, online and will provide speedy, convenient and transparent services to the residents of the city.DGP (UT) Praveer Ranjan said, “mPassport-enabled 32 tablets were allotted to 16 police stations. Now on, cops will visit the applicants’ residences and upload the necessary documents on the application instead of collecting the photocopies. As the application is connected with the RPO, uploaded documents will reach the concerned department. Although 15 days is the timeframe to complete passport verification, Chandigarh police usually completes the verification process within 5 days.Besides this, UT Administrator also handed over the insurance claim cheque of Rs 90,00,000 presented by HDFC bank to the family members of lady police official L/C Sharda who departed recently in a road accident. She was survived by two children and husband serving as Constable Parveen Kumar in Chandigarh Police. The Cheque was given as per recently signed MoU between Chandigarh Police and HDFC Bank.

IEP Chandigarh, June 16

Dr. Baljit Kaur, Minister of Social Justice, Empowerment, and Minorities, announced that Mr. Amrik Singh, son of Mr. Makhan Singh and a resident of village Shankarpur in District Patiala, had his fake Scheduled Caste Certificate rejected by State Level Scrutiny Committee which was constituted by Government.

Providing more information, Dr. Baljit Kaur, Minister of Social Justice, Empowerment, and Minorities, explained that Mrs. Usa Rani, wife of Mr. Puran Singh and resident of village Kauli in District Patiala, had lodged a complaint with the Punjab State Scheduled Castes Commission, Chandigarh. The complaint stated that Mr. Amrik Singh, the current Sarpanch of Village Shankarpur, District Patiala, had forged a Scheduled Caste certificate despite belonging to the General Category (Rajput) caste.

The Minister further informed that the Punjab State Scheduled Castes Commission forwarded this complaint to the Director of the Social Justice, Empowerment Department for investigation. After the department conducted its investigation, it was confirmed that Mr. Amrik Singh’s Scheduled Caste certificate was indeed fake.

The minister stated that our department has written to the Deputy Commissioner of Patiala, requesting the cancellation and confiscation of Mr. Amrik Singh Sarpanch’s Scheduled Caste Certificate No. 2131 dated 06.11.1995.

IEP Chandigarh, June 16     

     Taking another step towards achieving the goal of transforming villages and making the state ‘Rangla Punjab’, Punjab Government has disbursed total Rs. 140.25 crore to Water Supply and Sanitation Department to manage liquid waste under the Swachh Bharat Mission Gramin (SBMG). Out of this amount, Rs.103 crore  have been released by the government led by Bhagwant Mann. This amount will be spent in 2950 villages of Punjab.          Divulging the detail, Water Supply and Sanitation Minister Bram Shankar Jimpa said that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has released Rs. 140.25 crore for the management of waste water in the villages so that the disposal of waste water and other liquid waste can be handled effectively. He said that 2950 villages of 23 districts are being covered with this amount so that sanitation and waste water can be managed effectively in the villages.          He said that Rs. 11.84 crore released for 288 villages of Amritsar district, Rs. 8.66 cr for 89 for villages of Barnala, Rs. 10.50 cr for 226 villages of Bathinda, Rs. 5.28 cr for 35 villages of Faridkot and 42 villages of Fatehgarh Sahib got Rs. 1.27 cr.          Similarly, Rs 6.49 crore disbursed to 57 villages of Fazilka, Rs 1.22 cr to 44 villages of Ferozepur, Rs 10.32 cr to 604 villages of Gurdaspur, Rs 2.83 cr to 89 villages of Hoshiarpur, Rs 3.80 cr to 107 villages of Jalandhar, Rs. 1.58 cr to 73 villages of Kapurthala and Rs. 8.63 crores to 196 villages of Ludhiana.          Jimpa said that 78 villages of Malerkotla received Rs 3.12 crore, Rs. 9.97 cr for 126 villages of Mansa, Rs 12.11 cr for 99 villages of Moga, Rs. 2.20 for 71 villages of Mohali, Rs 8.84 crore for 40 villages of Muktsar, Rs. 75.63 lakhs for 44 villages of Nawanshahr, Rs. 2.38 cr for 75 villages of Pathankot, Rs. 4.44 cr for 149 villages of Patiala, Rs. 1.63 cr to 81 villages of Ropar, Rs. 9.59 cr for 139 villages of Sangrur and Rs. 12.71 crores have been given to 215 villages of Tarn Taran.          He further said that the Punjab Government under the leadership of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann is making great efforts for the overall development of villages and is paying special attention to the supply of clean drinking water as well as the management of liquid and solid waste so that the state villages can be made model villages.  

IEP Chandigarh

“Since our son, all of 19, met with the fatal accident on 10th June, we were at his bedside praying for a miracle to happen. But who could have imagined that our dear son was to be the miracle? He became a miracle to all those who got another chance at life because of my son’s organ donation,” stated the grief-stricken but brave-heart father, who wanted to keep his identity anonymous due to his personal sentiments, as he was being handed over the mortal remains of his deceased son at the mortuary at PGIMER.  As a result of the incredible decision taken in their darkest hour, the donor family from Punjab gave a new lease of life to three terminally ill organ failure patients with the transplantation of heart to a matching recipient admitted in a hospital in New Delhi. The second recipient turned out lucky to get the renal transplant and the third recipient was given a fresh lease of life with Simultaneous Liver and Kidney transplant, this being the 3rd   Simultaneous Liver Kidney Transplant by PGIMER. Prof. Vivek Lal Director PGIMER, while paying rich tributes to the donor family, stated, “Life after death” merely sounds unrealistic until the organ donation gave it a meaning. Cadaver organ donation is the epitome of magnanimity considering the donor family’s act of courage and generosity to put their own grief aside and make a difference in the lives of others. This noble act of the family is praiseworthy and should motivate others.” The heart-wrenching and tragic death of a young donor from Punjab is beyond comprehension and extremely difficult to reconcile with. It was on 10th June, when, the two-wheeler driven by the donor skidded and the donor lost balance, his head hitting against the road, leaving him with grievous head injuries. Immediately, the critically injured youth was rushed to a local hospital and then shifted to PGIMER but all the efforts proved futile and the donor could not be revived and subsequently was declared brain dead on 13th June here in PGIMER.   After the declaration by the brain death certification committee, the transplant coordinators at PGIMER approached the donor’s father to request if he could consider organ donation.  Expressing his sentiments, the distressed father said, “We did not know anything about organ donation. But once we understood that our decision can help saving many lives, we decided to go ahead. The only thought in our minds was that our decision may turn lucky for someone else and they get more time to spend with their dear one.” Following the father’s consent, the heart, both kidneys and liver were harvested from the deceased. Once the donor organs became available, everyone swiftly got into action. As the cross-matching indicated no matching recipient for the heart in PGIMER, immediately ROTTO (North) got in touch with other transplant hospitals to explore options for matching recipients, and finally, the heart was allocated for a 55-year-old male matching recipient with refractory heart failure admitted in a private hospital in New Delhi with the intervention of NOTTO (National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation).”Prof. Vipin Koushal, Medical Superintendent, PGIMER & Nodal Officer ROTTO (North) further elaborated, “To ensure safe and speedy transport of the harvested heart, a Green Corridor was created in conjunction with the retrieval timings from PGIMER to Technical AirPort Chandigarh for the transportation of retrieved heart for the onward flight to Delhi at around 12.55 pm on 14th June.” At PGIMER, the retrieved liver and one kidney of the donor were transplanted simultaneously to another 55-year-old male patient suffering from simultaneous kidney and liver failure and was able to sustain his life with support dialysis. The second retrieved kidney was successfully transplanted to a 50-year-old male renal failure patient here in PGIMER.  With this, the exemplary courage and magnanimity of the donor family gave the greatest gift anyone can give – the ‘gift of life’ to 3 terminally ill organ failure patients, one admitted to Delhi hospital and two here in PGIMER.