Inaugurating a conference on Continuing Medical Education (CME) at Government Medical College, he said the funds collected from the increase in hospital charges would be utilised for development of the three medical colleges -- at Amritsar, Patiala and Faridkot -- in addition to hospitals attached with them.

He said the fees in medical and dental colleges had been marginally increased to garner more revenue and the additional funds so collected would go directly to the medical colleges and utilised for development works there.

An additional source of revenue has also been generated for the three medical college by having seats for non-resident Indians in MBBS and BDS courses. These seats fetched a revenue of about Rs 14 crore every year. These funds would be used for the improvement of facilities in the medical colleges and the hospitals attached with them, Bhatnagar said.

The conference was organised under the auspices of the newly set up Punjab chapter of the Association of Physicians of India.

Dr Baljit Singh, director of research and medical education, suggested that 150 hours of continued medical education should be made mandatory for every general practitioner in every five years of professional practice. The contact programme was organised by the Department of Medicine of Government Medical College under the stewardship of Dr Kamaljit Kaur, head of the department, and organising secretary Dr Balbir Singh Babbar.