india

Updated: Aug 27, 2019 08:17 IST

Two-and-a-half years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Bathinda, on November 25, 2016, classes for the first batch of around 50 MBSS students will start from Monday.

The ₹950-crore project is coming up on the outskirts of the city on the Bathinda-Dabwali road on 177 acre and will also have a nursing college.

Part of the first phase of the ambitious project, classes will be held at the institute’s temporary campus in Faridkot-based Guru Gobind Singh Medical College (GGSMC), an institute under Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS). The varsity, set up 21 years ago, is the mentor for the establishment of AIIMS in Bathinda city.

The OPD on campus is expected to begin from September 1, with Bathinda deputy commissioner B Srinivasan telling HT on Sunday that work on the three-storey building was almost complete. “Construction is on at a war-footing. Finishing touches are being given to the OPD,” the DC said.

He added, “The construction of diagnostic and other blocks along with the medical college building is also on at speed. Work on laying the road from the main entrance to the OPD block will be completed soon.”

BFUHS vice-chancellor Dr Raj Bahadur said, “The exact number of MBBS students will be cleared on Monday after the final round of counselling. We have made elaborate arrangements to hold classes and provide hostel facility to AIIMS students.”

He added classes would be moved to the Bathinda campus in the next session. Officials added that delay in appointing teachers was among a teething administrative problem that was plaguing the project. At the inauguration, Modi had said that the institute would be made functional by 2020. However, due to the lack of environmental clearances, construction activities faced inordinate delay.