Prescription ready Six new AIIMS before ‘08,

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh discussed the plan with senior Health Ministry officials today who are expected to communicate this to the protestors who announced after a rally in the capital this afternoon that their strike would continue.

Another round of talks between the protestors and the Government was expected tonight in a bid by the Government to defuse the protracted stand-off. What didn’t help matters were reports of an attempted self-immolation in the capital.

Working on a two-year plan, the government hopes the stress on seats will not continue beyond the 2007-08 academic session. In two years, the target is to have about 2400 seats at the undergraduate level which is twice the number of available seats today.

It’s learnt that the Prime Minister spoke to Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia today and asked him to line up the resources needed for this expansion. The assessment of the Health Ministry is that this is possible.

AIIMS Director P. Venugopal also conveyed to the PM that the premier institute can increase intake from 50 to 90 as an immediate measure.

But the government has to look beyond AIIMS and to this effect, the Health Ministry plans to set up a new undergraduate medical institute at Chandigarh in the short term to add to the number of seats. Sources said an in-principle decision for this has also been taken.

One of the key problems in implementing this exercise is shortage of faculty and staff. To address this, the government is looking at increasing the age of retirement of faculty in medical institutes from 60 to 65 so as to arrest the crisis over the next few years given that the government has decided to implement 27 per cent OBC reservation from next year.

Already, the Health Ministry has written to all institutions under its direct control to submit detailed project reports on what is needed to increasing their seat capacity by 50-60 per cent. The hope is that all this will put in place an emergency exercise to bring about a significant expansion of opportunities in a short span.

In the discussions with the PM, it was also pointed out that such an effort would require putting in place fast track clearance mechanism so that projects are not caught in red tape.

The Upgrade

Govt plan by 2008

• Six new AIIMS, even if it means running some from rented premises

• This means hiring 20,000 “non-student human resources”: faculty, nurses, paramedics, attendants

• Immediate upgrade of AIIMS, New Delhi: MBBS seats up from 50 to 90

• Doubling all MBBS seats in Central institutions nationwide to 2400; all told to file project reports by June

• Focus on MBBS; MD/MS upgrade can come later

• Increase faculty retirement age from 60 to 65 to tide over crisis in short-term

pranab.samanta@expressindia.com