Deepkamal Kaur Jalandhar, September 8 A demand for nursing passouts in abroad is perhaps driving more girls to pursue the General Nursing and Midwifery (GNM) course from seven government nursing colleges of Punjab. For the 330 seats of GNM course, as many as 675 applicants appeared for the centralised counselling held at the Government School of Nursing, Shaheed Babu Labh Singh Civil Hospital, here yesterday. While all general category seats were filled by the afternoon, only eight seats in sports, defence and BC category remained vacant. The participating institutes included the host college; Shaheed Madan Lal Dhingra Memorial Government School of Nursing; IMH Mental Hospital; Government GNM Training School, Civil Hospital, Bathinda; Government GNM School of Nursing, Civil Hospital, Gurdaspur; Government School of Nursing Mata Kaushalaya Hospital, Patiala; Government Institute of Nursing and Paramedical Sciences, Civil Hospital, Ropar; and Government Nursing Training School, Comrade Jagdish Chander Freedom Fighter Civil Hospital, Sangrur. Most of the candidates at the counselling centre conceded that they had a desire to go abroad and the GNM course was in demand outside India. Manjinder Kaur of Gurdaspur was a little upset as she was interested in getting a seat in the college of her hometown. But she got a seat in Amritsar. Rawant Singh, who had come for his daughter’s admission, said, “While most of the arrangements were fine, we face a problem in getting the medical test done. The institute should have either asked the applicants to come with their medical reports or should have set up separate counters here today. There was huge rush of patients at the counters where girls were appearing. It took so long to get the medical test done.” BI Goyal, director, Shaheed Madan Lal Dhingra Memorial Government School of Nursing, Bathinda, conducted the counselling.

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