Chandigarh, July 11 -- The Punjab cabinet on Thursday approved the Mukh Mantri Sehat Yojna to provide cashless medical treatment of up to Rs.10 lakh to all the residents of the state at government as well as empanelled private hospitals. A decision to this effect was taken during a meeting of the council of ministers chaired by Bhagwant Mann at the chief minister's official residence. "With this, Punjab has become the first state to provide cashless treatment of up to Rs.10 lakh," Mann said after chairing the cabinet meeting. A spokesperson from the chief minister's office said the scheme will be rolled out on October 2. "The scheme will benefit the entire population and more than 550 private hospitals have been empanelled for the scheme so far and the number will be enhanced to 1,000 in coming days," the spokesperson said. Previously, a family could avail treatment only up to Rs.5 lakh. Given the difficulties faced by investors, the cabinet has decided to implement the notification to collect change of land use (CLU), external development charges (EDC), licence fee (LF) and others from the projects developed under the popular act or mega project policy from June 4 this year. These charges were implemented through wide notification dated June 4, 2025, on all new real estate projects to be set up in the state and on new extensions to ongoing projects with effect from April 1, 2025. However, now the Cabinet has decided to implement this notification from June 4. The Punjab government has also decided to send 1,500 of the best-performing women sarpanch/panchs to Nanded Sahib to pay obeisance, CM Mann announced on Thursday. Providing details, the CM said the initiative is being undertaken to commemorate the 350th martyrdom day of the ninth Sikh master Guru Teg Bahadur. HTC...