Centre approves long-pending demand for AIIMS in Telangana and Tamil Nadu

Each of the new AIIMS would cater to around 1,500 outdoor patients per day and around 1,000 indoor patients per month.

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The Union Cabinet on Monday approved setting up of two new All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Madurai, Tamil Nadu, at a cost of Rs 1,264 crore and at Bibinagar, Telangana, at a cost of Rs 1,028 crore. An official releae said that AIIMS will be set up under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY).

It said that each new AIIMS will add 100 UG (MBBS) seats and 60 B.Sc (Nursing) seats, will have 15-20 super specialty departments and around 750 hospital beds. Each of the new AIIMS would cater to around 1,500 outdoor patients per day and around 1,000 indoor patients per month.

The setting up of new AIIMS involves creation of hospital, teaching blocks for medical and nursing courses, residential complex and allied facilities/ services, broadly on the pattern of AIIMS, New Delhi and other six new AIIMS taken up under Phase-I of the PMSSY.

The release said that the objective is to establish the new AIIMS as Institutions of National Importance for providing quality tertiary healthcare, medical education, nursing education and research in the Region.

"The timeframe for establishing the new AIIMS-Tamil Nadu and AIIMS-Telangana will be 45 months, broadly comprising a pre-construction phase of 10 months, a construction phase of 32 months and stabilization/commissioning phase of three months.

Cost of construction and running of the new AIIMS would be met by the Central government under the PMSSY.

The PMSSY aims at correcting the imbalances in the availability of affordable tertiary healthcare facilities in different parts of the country and augmenting facilities for quality medical education in the under-served states.

AIIMS in Tamil Nadu was announced in the Budget speech in 2015-16 and the Finance Ministry had conveyed its in-principle approval for establishment of AIIMS in Telangana in April 2018.

This comes months after the Telangana government expressed great anger, as the long-pending issue of an AIIMS to be set up in the state was not even addressed by the Centre during the last Union Budget, despite provisions in the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Act, 2014.

In May, the central government formed a five-member team under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to inspect the proposed site in Telangana, which has now approved the university.

IANS inputs