The Centre has targeted completion of construction of AIIMS Madurai, with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) loan, by October 2026.
Quoting a letter, dated April 8, 2022, from Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar, Madurai MP Su. Venkatesan said it was good news for Madurai as the deadline for the completion of the ₹1,977.80-crore project had been fixed now.
The Minister said 92% of the pre-investment activity at the site, including construction of the boundary wall, had been completed.
The MP said the Centre should take up the construction work expeditiously to make up for the two-year delay in the project execution. “We will continuously rake this up in every Parliamentary session to ensure that it is completed at the earliest,” he said.
In the letter replying to the Madurai MP on his query on AIIMS Madurai, the Minister said the Cabinet had approved establishment of new AIIMS at Thoppur in Madurai at a cost of ₹1,264 crore in December 2018. The JICA team visited Madurai and other functional AIIMS as part of its preparatory survey mission in February 2020.
However, due to inclusion of a 150-bedded Infectious Disease Block in the Madurai project and other additions, its revised estimated cost increased to ₹1,977.80 crore, out of which ₹1,627.70 crore was to be covered by the JICA loan and the balance through budgetary support.
Various posts for AIIMS Madurai had been created and the Executive Director, Deputy Director (Admin), Superintending Engineer and the Administrative Officer had been appointed. The MBBS course of AIIMS Madurai for the academic year 2021-22 had been started on a temporary campus at Government Ramanathapuram Medical College, he said.
