Sarbananda Sonowal Nominated as Rajya Sabha Candidate from Assam

GUWAHATI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) named Union minister Sarbananda Sonowal as its candidate for the Rajya Sabha by-polls in Assam.

Sonowal will be contesting for the Rajya Sabha seat that has been vacant since Assembly speaker Biswajit Daimary resigned.

Currently, Sonowal is the MLA of Majuli constituency.

Earlier, the Minister was addressing a conference on 'Diverse and Fulfilling Career Paths in Ayush Systems: Education, Entrepreneurship & Employment Focus on North-eastern States' in Guwahati.

The Union minister said that there are only a few Ayush colleges in the Northeast and the Indian traditional medicine systems can only be popularized by making available more qualified practitioners.

"For this purpose, more Ayush teaching colleges may be required to come up in the Northeastern states. Earlier Centrally-sponsored scheme of National Ayush Mission provided financial support of Rs 9 crore to state governments to open new Ayush colleges. Now, the Government of India has enhanced this amount to Rs 70 crore. States may identify the land and manpower for this purpose and avail this opportunity as per the guidelines of the NAM," Sonowal said.

Sonowal added that the Ministry of Ayush has also accorded in-principle approval for upgrading the Government Ayurvedic College, Jalukbari, Guwahati as the Centre of Excellence with the support of up to Rs 10 crore. He said that his Ministry provides Rs 5 crore to upgrade the undergraduate teaching colleges and Rs 6 crore to improve the infrastructure of post graduate institutions.

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