The State Government on Friday informed the Madras High Court Bench here that it had submitted a list of five sites — Perundurai in Erode district, Chengalpet in Kancheepuram district, Thoppur in Madurai, Sengipatti in Thanjavur and Pudukottai Town in Pudukottai district — to the Centre for selecting any one of them for the establishment of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
The submission was made before a Division Bench of Justices K.K. Sasidharan and G.R. Swaminathan who were seized of two public interest litigations, one seeking a direction to the Centre to announce the district in which AIIMS would be established and the other seeking a specific direction to establish it in Thoppur near here.
Filing a counter affidavit on behalf of the State, Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan recalled that in April 2015, a Central inspection team led by Dharitri Panda, the then Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, visited the five sites and called for additional particulars which were also submitted.
Thereafter, nothing much transpired despite several reminders sent by the State Government. In March this year, the Centre informed that a new frame work had been evolved for site selection for AIIMS through challenge method and sought certain details such as accessibility to educational institutions from the sites and the commercial activities around them.
“The said particulars have also been furnished to the Government of India on July 12 after obtaining [them] from the five District Collectors viz Erode, Kancheepuram, Madurai, Pudukottai and Thanjavur,” Dr. Radhakrishnan said and added that the State Government was taking all steps to get the institution established as expeditiously as possible.
