Dr Harsh Vardhan, Rupani inaugurate first session of AIIMS Rajkot

GANDHINAGAR: The academic session of the first batch of AIIMS Rajkot in Gujarat started on Monday from its temporary campus in Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Medical College with 50 MBBS students. Chief Minister Vijay Rupani inaugurated the first academic session virtually, with Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan and Union Minister of State for Health Ashwini Chaubey joining the event through video conference.

Addressing the gathering through video conference from New Delhi, Dr Harsh Vardhan said that AIIMS Rajkot will be a 750-bedded hospital with multiple specialty and super specialty departments, and has a total outlay of Rs 1,195 crore, including Rs 185 crore for state-of-the-art medical equipment. AIIMS Rajkot will have 125 MBBS and 60 nursing seats in due course of time, he added.

MoS Health Ashwini Chaubey said that it was former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s dream that every state in the country should have an AIIMS campus, adding that six such facilities were set up during the tenure of late Sushma Swaraj as Union Health Minister. “Today, 16 AIIMS have been sanctioned during PM Modi’s tenure,” he said.

CM Rupani said that previous governments at the Centre had denied the state a chance to have an AIIMS and it was only after Narendra Modi became PM that the permission arrived. “It is a matter of great pleasure for us that when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, he granted permission for AIIMS to be set up across the country. Previous governments did not pay much attention to the health sector,” he said.

Rajkot AIIMS will be constructed at a cost of Rs 1,195 crore on 201 acres of land. The hospital will be completed in two years and efforts are being made to start OPD by 2021. The first batch of 50 students will be educated within the campus from Monday.

A statement issued by Deputy CM Nitin Patel last week said that the Rajkot AIIMS Hospital would soon be inaugurated by PM Modi.