Court seeks start of construction for medical institute in Patna

The Patna High Court Tuesday asked the central government to invite tenders in February for construction of the Jai Prakash Narayan All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Patna and to start construction by June this year.

A bench of the court gave the order after hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by the Council for Protection of Public Rights and Welfare.

The Patna high court had last month sought a progress report on the AIIMS in Patna from the central government.

The then Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat had laid the foundation stone of the prestigious medical institute at Phulwari Sharif in Bihar on Jan 3, 2004 and Rs.300 crore (Rs.three billion) was allotted for the speedy completion of the project

The proposed AIIMS in Patna was part of the central government project envisaging setting up AIIMS-like institutes in Patna (Bihar), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhubaneswar (Orissa), Jodhpur (Rajasthan) and Rishikesh (Uttarakhand). However, the project is already delayed.

The project was first proposed in 2003 by the then National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and cleared in 2006 by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). The new institutions were supposed to come up in three years.

Each institute was to have a 960-bed hospital and provide undergraduate medical education for 100 students per year. Postgraduate and postdoctoral courses are also proposed to be offered.link