Assam Cabinet approves waiver of state govt exam fee for SC/ST students

Guwahati, July 4: In a bid to encourage more participation of youth from SC/ST communities in competitive exam, Assam Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal for exemption of examination fees for the service or posts under Government of Assam, for students belonging to these communities.

In the weekly meeting, the cabinet further took the following key decisions:

Ensuring affordable and quality care for kidney patients

• In a bid to provide affordable and high-quality dialysis services to patients suffering from kidney ailments, the cabinet approved to operationalising 37 new Hemo-Dialysis Centres in the state with 150 additional Hemo-Dialysis Machines in PPP mode with support from CSR partners
• The state government presently runs 41 centres with 277 Hemo-Dialysis Machines where 2,21,116 free dialysis sessions were conducted in 2023-24

Ensuring world-class cancer care

• To provide high quality yet affordable cancer care to the patients of Assam and the region, the state government has accorded approval to signing of a tripartite MoU between Government of Assam, Tata Education and Development Trusts (TEDT) and Assam Cancer Care Foundation (ACCF)
• The signing of the new MoU is being necessitated as the previous MoU was valid till February 2, 2023 and the separate entity of ACCF was also formed post the signing of the previous MoU
• A total of 17 hospitals are under the ambit of this MoU, of which nine are already operational and eight more are in various stages of progress in Diphu, Dhubri, Tinsukia, Sivasagar, Nagaon, Golaghat, Nalbari and Goalpara
• The total projected cost of the entire project is Rs. 3,983 cr of which Rs. 2,803 cr is being borne by Government of Assam while the remaining Rs. 1,180 cr is being contributed by TEDT
• This will ensure the continued treatment of patients availing cancer care at affordable prices in these centres