Pressing Tamil Nadu’s case for being chosen as a place for setting up a State-level ‘All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS)’ in the current year itself, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa said already five suitable sites – Chengalpet in Kancheepuram district, Pudukottai town, Sengipatti in Thanjavur district, Perundurai in Erode district and Thoppur in Madurai district – had been identified. Ms. Jayalalithaa, in a letter to the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, said the State government officials had been directed to provide all details required by the Centre in this regard. She urged the Central government to set up the AIIMS “in the first phase” during this fiscal year itself. A copy of the letter was released to the media here on Sunday.
The locales identified were not only suitably connected by road, rail and air, but also the State was already in possession of the land required. Availability of sufficient water and electricity facilities in all the five places was an added advantage, she said.
In June-end, the Union Health Ministry had sent out letters to all State governments to identify lands to set up an AIIMS. The proposal to set up AIIMS in each state was launched under the ‘Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana’ in March 2006. There were two components of the scheme – setting up a new AIIMS at the State-level and upgrading existing medical institutions. While six new AIIMS were commissioned, 13 existing institutions were upgraded as super-specialty hospitals.
Between 2008 and 2013, medical colleges in Salem, Madurai, Thanjavur and Tirunelveli were upgraded in three phases. While the Central government offered Rs. 125 crore, the State government pitched in with Rs. 25 crore for each. Tiruchi and Coimbatore medical colleges also received funds for upgrading facilities in due course.
To set up a new AIIMS would cost an estimated Rs. 840 crore. Each institute would have a 960-bed facility, with dedicated beds for intensive care/accident trauma, physical medicine and rehabilitation and for alternative medicine (AYUSH). The institute would have an intake of 100 students in the MBBS degree course.
Ms. Jayalalithaa in her letter said that an institution of the stature of AIIMS in Tamil Nadu would substantially augment the facilities in the State for providing quality medical education and also make available high-end tertiary level healthcare in the public sector to benefit the poor and the middle classes.
“Tamil Nadu has a proud record of speedy implementation of such projects and hence” should be “included in the list of States in which an AIIMS would be set up during the current financial year itself,” Ms. Jayalalithaa emphasised.
