Tatsat Chronicle Magazine

Govt To Rename All 23 AIIMS After Local Heroes, Monuments & Geographical Identities: Report

August 22, 2022
AIIMS

The government has made a proposal to give unique names to all AIIMS including Delhi based on regional heroes, freedom fighters, historical events or landmarks of the region or its unique geographical identity.

Government sources told PTI that most of the 23 Indian Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) have submitted the list of names to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare after seeking its advice on the matter.

AIIMS, many of which are operational and others are being set up under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), are known by common names and are distinguished only by location, an official said.

“So, the Union health ministry has drafted a proposal to give specific names to all the 23 AIIMS, which include those fully functional, partially operational or under construction,” the source said.

In this regard, suggestions were sought for assigning specific names to different AIIMS, which could be linked to local or regional heroes of prominence, freedom fighters, distinct geographical identity of the area where the institute is located and prominent historical events or monuments of the region,” the source explained.

Most of the institutes have proposed three or four names with explanatory notes for the proposed names.

Six new AIIMS – Bihar (Patna), Chhattisgarh (Raipur), Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal), Odisha (Bhubaneswar), Rajasthan (Jodhpur) and Uttarakhand (Rishikesh) have been sanctioned in the first phase of PMSSY and are fully functional.

Out of the 16 AIIMS established between 2015 and 2022, MBBS classes and outpatient department services have been started in 10 institutes, while only MBBS classes have been started in another two. The remaining four institutes are at different stages of development.