The government of India has directed the J&K administration to set-up a temporary campus adjacent to the proposed site of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in south Kashmir’s Awantipora for starting medical courses from next academic year.
A senior health department official informed that GOI has already given nod to commencement of medical courses from AIIMS Samba in Jammu division from current academic year. “Administration has set up temporary accommodation in Samba and on the same pattern the administration has been directed to set up a temporary accommodation in the vicinity of the proposed site at Awantipora.”
All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Jammu’s Samba district has secured the Union Health Ministry’s approval to start its first academic session from this year. The AIIMS in Vijaypur tehsil of Samba district has been sanctioned a total intake capacity of 50 MBBS seats for the academic session 2020-2021.
Further, the GOI has stressed on the timely completion of construction of these prestigious healthcare projects within stipulated time frame.
The Central government has set a January 2025 deadline to complete the prestigious projects.
However AIIMS Kashmir has seen little progress in the last five years since it was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The institute to be established at Awantipora is part of the Prime Minister’s Development Package (PMDP) which was announced on 7 November 2015. In early 2019, the central government approved the project with a cost of Rs 1828 crore.
Nearly 1886 kanals of land have since been handed over to CPWD for construction of the AIIMS at Awantipora.
Although issues like land acquisition, rehabilitation and compensation of the people affected by the project have been belatedly resolved, the construction agency is yet to finish the fencing of the project site.
According to officials, Rs 87 crore has been released by the government for compensation, road construction and other infrastructural utilities for the project.
The AIIMS, according to official information, is supposed to have a 750-bed hospital and would cater to around 1,500 OPD cases on a daily basis.
The project besides providing super specialty healthcare would also help Kashmir in human resource development in medical science.