With an objective of strengthening the health services in the State, Minister for Finance, Culture and Labour & Employment, Dr Haseeb Drabu today handed over four ambulances to the Health Department.The ambulances were procured from the Corpus Fund of the Excise Department under Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Programme and will be distributed to the Government Health institutions.Minister for Health and Medical Education Bali Bhagat, Minister of State for Finance, Ajay Nanda, MLA Doda Shakti Singh Parihar, MLA Banihal Vikar Rasool, MLA Kathua, Rajiv Jasrotia, MLA Chenani, Dina Nath Bhagat, Commissioner Secretary Finance, Navin K Choudhary and Excise Commissioner Tsering Angchok were present on the occasion.The Finance Minister along with Minister of State Finance handed over the keys of the ambulances to the Health Minister and flagged off the same for District Hospital Kathua, District Hospital Doda, CHC/Emergency Hospital Banihal and CHC Chenani in the presence of local public representatives of these areas.The Excise Department has provided the ambulances under CSR Programme for which the department has created a Corporate Social Responsibility Corpus Fund. This fund is being used for the support to de-addiction centres, measures to remove the instance of drunken driving, promoting road safety and other similar purposes. The department is also contributing to the fund collected from all stake-holders/liquor industries.
Speaking on the occasion, the Finance Minister said the fleet of ambulances shall bring definitely a big relief to the patients coming from far off places and will be great support to the tertiary health care.Thanking the stakeholders for their contribution in the corpus fund, the Finance Minister said the funds are being properly utilized by the Excise department in carrying out various activities including support to drug/alcohol de-addiction and rehabilitation/counseling centres and engaging them in a wide range of awareness generation programme to remove the instances of drunken driving, promoting of road safety awareness and educating people about ill effects of drug abuse in varied community settings including village Panchayats, schools, colleges and universities, dealing with the addicts thorough programme of motivational counseling, treatment, follow up and social-reintegration of recovered addicts, imparting drug abuse prevention/rehabilitation training to volunteers, facilitating medical treatment of hard core addicts, imparting vocational training/financial assistance to women with no other source of income involved in illicit distillation of liquor and others.
"Social responsibility gives an opportunity to the organizations to work towards the betterment of the society and make it a better place to live by providing funding and resources for worthwhile social causes", he added.
Dr Drabu lauded the efforts of the Excise department for actively performing their duties and utilizing the corpus fund specially created with the objective to serve the people.Distilleries/bottling plants, wholesale traders and retail/off licenses have been contributing in the Corpus Fund by providing Rs 24000 each annually while as bars/hotels/banquets/clubs etc by providing Rs 6000 annually.Earlier, 3 ambulances to the health institutions in Kashmir division and 1 in Leh have been handed over by the Excise department under CSR Programme.Among others, senior officers of Excise department and representatives of Jammu Wine Traders and Bars Association were present on the occasion.