The games that politicians play! This is the story of Gujarat’s long pending All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), graciously announced in this year’s Union Budget.





The fact is that if BJP patriarch and first NDA Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had his way, Gujarat would have got the first AIIMS outside Delhi—in Kutch at least a decade and a half ago. Ironically, it was the present PM Narendra Modi, the state’s chief minister at the time, who did everything to stall the project.





On January 26, 2001 a high intensity earthquake had devastated Kutch region of Gujarat bordering Pakistan, reducing it to rubble with thousands perishing in one of the worst human tragedies witnessed in India. Among the buildings destroyed was the government hospital in the district headquarter of Bhuj, where over 200 doctors, para medical staff and others were buried alive by falling debris.





The then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee spent two days in Kutch to oversee relief and rehabilitation work. He also laid the foundation stone of a new hospital to replace the old GK General Hospital. It was his desire that the rebuilt GK General Hospital be a state-of-the-art medical facility and he foresaw it as one of the best in the entire western part of the country. Vajpayee sanctioned ₹100 crore from the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund for the purpose and made it known that more would be forthcoming, if needed.