Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate a new AIIMS at Jharkhand’s Deoghar today at the cost of Rs 1,100 crore. Established in 1956, the medical institute has seen a rapid development under the BJP-ruled Centre — from seven before 2014 to 16 till date
The new AIIMS at Deoghar in Jharkhand. The foundation stone of the facility was laid by Prime Minister Modi in 2018. PIB
India’s health sector will receive a boost today as Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Deoghar, Jharkhand.
This new healthcare facility, whose foundation stone was laid in 2018, is expected to achieve the dual purpose of providing super specialty health care to the population and appointing a huge pool of new doctors.
Ahead of his visit to Jharkhand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted about the institute and that it was in line with his government’s commitment to providing top quality healthcare services.
We take a closer look at the history of AIIMS and how India has seen 16 of these premier medical institutes being approved in the past eight years.
Birth of AIIMS
While Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first prime minister, has been credited for the heights reached by AIIMS, the real driving force behind India’s number one medical institute and hospital is Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, the then health minister.
The Indian Express reports that on 18 February 1956, the then minister of health Rajkumari Amrit Kaur had introduced a bill on the same in Lok Sabha. Speaking from her heart, she had then said, “It has been one of my cherished dreams that for post graduate study and for the maintenance of high standards of medical education in our country, we should have an institute of this nature which would enable our young men and women to have their post graduate education in their own country.”
While the idea was considered novel, funding was a challenge.
However, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur didn’t give up — she was instrumental in acquiring a huge amount from the New Zealand government and rallied around and was successful in getting donations from international bodies like the Rockefeller foundation, and the Ford foundation, as well as from the government of Australia, West Germany, as well as from the Dutch government. Ten years later, Kaur, belonging to the Kapurthala princely family lay the foundation of India’s number one medical institute and hospital.
Interestingly, the first AIIMS was to be set up in then Calcutta, now known as Kolkata. However, following the refusal of chief minister of West Bengal Bidhan Chandra Roy, the institute was set up in Delhi.
Under her watch, AIIMS attained global repute as it was placed alongside the best of institutes from America, Canada and Europe.
Growth of AIIMS
In 2003, then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee realised the significance of AIIMS and in his Independence Day speech announced the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) scheme under which “six new hospitals with modern facilities, like those available at AIIMS in Delhi, will be established in backward states in the next three years”.
He realised that people in under-developed states suffered due to the lack of good hospital services and hence, he initiated the PMSSY scheme.
However, as he was voted out of power within nine months, the scheme went into deep freeze and was only renewed in 2006.
Officially launched in 2006, six AIIMS-like medical institutes were announced in Patna, Bhopal, Raipur, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur and Rishikesh with an original budget of Rs 332 crore. Though initiated under Vajpayee’s administration, the bulk of the work was completed under the United Progressive Alliance in 2012.
In fact, a 2012 Lok Sabha answer detailed the progress of the six AIIMS institutes in the country.
AIIMS in Modi rule
In 2014, when Narendra Modi came to power, the development of AIIMS institutes has seen a jump.
In his tenure, he has approved a total of 16 new AIIMS of which nine are set to be fully operational in 2022, while two AIIMS would become functional a year later in 2023.
The nine AIIMS of the PM Modi regime, which are slated to be completed in the year 2022, include Mangalagiri (Andhra Pradesh), Guwahati (Assam), Rajkot (Gujarat), Bilaspur (Madhya Pradesh), Deoghar (Jharkhand), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Bathinda (Punjab), Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh) and Kalyani in West Bengal. The premier institute Vijaypur in Jammu is scheduled to be completed by January 2023 and AIIMS-Bibinagar in Telangana is to be completed by November 2023.
The premier institute Vijaypur in Jammu is scheduled to be completed by January 2023 and AIIMS-Bibinagar in Telangana is to be completed by November 2023.
According to the information provided by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in a written reply to Lok Sabha among the five remaining AIIMS, the Centre has set January 2025 as the deadline for completion of AIIMS-Awantipora in Kashmir and AIIMS-Madurai in Tamil Nadu is supposed to be ready for patient care in October 2026.
Benefits of AIIMS institutes
The setting up of such medical institutes has not only helped in providing better health facilities to citizens, but also resulted in a substantial increase in the number of medical seats and the overall number of doctors in the country.
According to a PTI report, the number of undergraduate medical seats has increased almost 80 per cent, climbing from around 51,000 before 2014 to 90,000 in 2022. As for the number of post-graduate seats, they witnessed a growth of 93 per cent in the last eight years as the numbers climbed from 31,000 to 60,000.
With inputs from agencies
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