Govt to set up new AIIMS at Kamrup in Assam

The union cabinet has given its approval for the setting up of a new All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Kamrup, in Assam, at a cost of Rs1,123 crore. The project, to be set up under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), will come up in North Guwahati Revenue circle.

The new AIIMS will be completed in a period of 48 months from the zero date (that is the date of the approval by the government), broadly comprising a pre-construction phase of 15 months, a construction phase of 30 months and stabilisation / commissioning phase of three months.

The Institution will consist of a hospital with a capacity of 750 beds, trauma center facilities, medical college with an intake of 100 MBBS students per year, nursing college with an intake of 60 B.Sc. (Nursing) students per year, residential complexes and allied facilities/services, broadly on the pattern of AIIMS, New Delhi.

The hospital will have 22 speciality/super-speciality departments, including 16 operation theaters. It will also have an AYUSH department with 30 beds for providing treatment facilities in traditional system of medicine.

The establishment of new AIIMS will serve the dual purpose of providing super speciality health care to the population while also help create a large pool of doctors and other health workers in this region that can be available for primary and secondary level institutions / facilities being created under National Health Mission (NHM).

Under the PMSSY scheme, AIIMS have been established in Bhubaneshwar, Bhopal, Raipur, Jodhpur, Rishikesh and Patna while work on AIIMS at Rae Bareli is in progress. Also, three AIIMS in Nagpur (Maharashtra), Kalyani (West Bengal) and Mangalagiri in Guntur (Andhra Pradesh) have been sanctioned in 2015 and two AIIMS have been sanctioned at Bathinda and Gorakhpur in 2016.

Meanwhile, the union HRD ministry on Wednesday announced a reduction in the cut offs marks for NEET-PG 2017 for admission to all post-graduate medical courses in the country by 7.5 percentile.

The HRD ministry has, in consultation with MCI, decided to reduce the percentile cut offs for NEET-PG 2017 by 7.5 percentile, taking them to 42.5 percentile for general candidates, 32.5 percentile for reserved category candidates and 37.5 percentile for PWD category. This is applicable for the academic year 2017 only. Around 9,000 additional candidates are expected to be benefited by this decision, an official release said.

The qualifying criteria was marks at 50th percentile for general category, 40th percentile for OBC/SC/ST and 45th percentile for PWD category.

However, as per Medical Council of India's Postgraduate Medical Education Regulations (PGMER), 2000, when sufficient number of candidates fail to secure minimum marks, the central government in consultation with MCI, may lower the minimum marks which shall be applicable for the said academic year only. Representations were received from some State Governments that seats in some categories may remain vacant as there are not sufficient number of candidates available.