SUKKUR: Pakistan Army will adopt the Sindh government’s educational and health institutions in and around the Pano Akil garrison and spend at least Rs136 million on them to improve their performance and make them beneficial to the general public, said General Officer Commanding (GOC), 16-Division, Pano Akil Garrison Maj Gen. Faiz Hameed.

He said during a visit to the government higher secondary schools for boys and girls and Pano Akil taluka hospital on Saturday that the amount would be spent on repairs, maintenance, rehabilitation and development of the schools and the hospital.

Of the Rs136 million, Rs41 million would be spent on the government boys higher secondary school, Rs20 million on the government girls higher secondary school and Rs75 million on the taluka hospital, he said.

He said that the army would play a supervisory role to ensure provision of improved facilities to the people of the area. These institutions would remain as usual under the education and health departments but they would be supervised by the Pano Akil cantonment, he explained.

He said the talented children of the area would be taken in the army cadet schools to enable them to better serve their country and nation.

He directed army officials to make outlook of these institutions attractive and impressive and give them army names so that it might have a good impact on people. He also invited the area’s MNA and MPAs to contribute to the good work.

Earlier, Sukkur Deputy Commissioner Shahzad Fazal Abbasi and the school principal Shafi Muhammad Korai briefed the GOC about the state of affairs in schools and the hospital.

In his visit to Mirpur Mathelo district headquarter on Saturday, the GOC said that as per wishes of the district administration the medical wing of 16-Division Pano Akil cantonment would improve the hospital within six months to enable it to extend better medical facilities to the people of Ghotki district.

He said later at a meeting attended by Ghotki DC Muhammad Tahir Watoo, SSP Saqib Sultan, assistant commissioners and officials of multinational companies (MNCs) that with the cooperation of Combined Military Hospital and MNCs, trauma centre, CCU, dialysis centre, mother & childcare centre would start working within three months.

These centres had been built with the MNCs cooperation but the government did not post doctors and paramedics in them, crippling their capacity to serve people.

The GOC said the cooperation was being extended in training doctors and paramedics and making them punctual in their duties as per timings fixed by the government.

Ghotki DC Muhammad Tahir Watoon said that the Sindh government provided Rs40 million a year for the purchase of medicines for the district headquarter hospital but still patients’ complaints were growing. That was why the district administration requested the cantonment to extend help in running the health facility in a better way, he said.

Published in Dawn, December 29th, 2015