CHANDIGARH: The first meeting of the State Level Advisory Committee for setting up of 'AYUSH' University in Punjab held here Thursday under the chairmanship of  Tikshan Sood, Medical Education and Research Minister, Punjab.

Taking part in the deliberations the Minister said that the state government had conceived the idea to setup AYUSH University to promote Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Naturopathy and Homeopathy systems of medicine in the state. He advised the members of the committee to prepare a blue-print of this project and workout a suitable model after studying the various models of universities available in the country. He also made it clear that the interest of the state government was to prefer a model with bare-minimum requirements and fewer burdens on the state exchequer in the initial stage.

Mr. Sood further said that the government had two suitable options, first one of Deemed University and second one of State University. One of these could be considered after the recommendations of the committee and all the modalities would be completed in a stipulated time frame.

On this occasion  S.K. Mishra, Chairman, Ex-Advisor, (AYUSH), Government of India, Ministry of Health said that presently there were two State Ayurveda Universities one each at Jamnagar (Gujrat) and Jodhpur (Rajashthan). While explaining the functioning of different models, Mr. Mishra said that the State Universities were empowered to affiliate the colleges within the territory of the State whereas other categories of Universities like Deemed University or Private University would be limited to their own work in awarding degrees for their owned Institutions by the University concerned. He also assured the minister that committee's report would be submitted soon.

 Sital Singh, Chief Parliamentary Secretary, Medical Education and Research emphasized the need to open new Ayurveda and Homeopathy dispensaries in the rural areas to provide better   and cheaper treatment facilities to the masses. It would also popularize these systems of medicine, he added.

While discussing the future plans of the 'AYUSH'  Jagjit Puri, Secretary, Medical Education and Research, Punjab (MERP) informed that the state government would request the Cental Government to provide one-time finical assistance of Rs. 50 crore in 11 th five year plan to stack the University infrastructure as given under 'Pardhan Mantri Sehat Yojna'.

The prominent amongst other members who were present  in the meeting included  Gurdip Singh, Chairman, Board of Ayurvedic and Unani Systems of Medicine, Punjab,  J.S. Dalal, Director, (MERP);  Y.C. Markan, Director, Ayurveda Punjab;  M.A. Kumar, Deputy Advisor (AYUSH);  P.R. Sharma, Secretary, Central Council of Indian Medicine,(CCIM); Vadya Jagjit Singh, Member, (CCIM); Dr. Sanjeev Goyal, Registrar, Board of Ayurvedic And Unani Systems of Medicine, Punjab; Dr. B.K. Kaushik, Medical Superintendent & Dr. Ashwani Sharma, Principal, Govt, Ayurvedic College & Hospital, Patiala; Dr. Neena Chaudhary, Prof, Sh. Shanwantry Ayurvedic College; Dr. Jog Raj Bhatia (Amritsar) and Dr. K.K. Prashar (Hoshiarpur).