Dharamshala: It is now not at all possible to convert Dr. Rajinder Prashad Govt. Medical college Tanda in Kangra district to AIIMS. The Health Minister of Himahcal Kaul Singh Thakur cleared it by saying that the center government does not agree to adopt already working Medical Colleges for this purpose. He said the government was willing to open AIIMS at Tanda however, the Centre has rejected it. He confirmed that the letter came from the then Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan from the state government to create a separate hospital about 200 acres of land to mark for AIIMS.
Centeral health ministry has cleared that the state government has to provide 200 acres of land to the ministry for the said project . As Himachal Government was not able to provide the said land for AIIMS, the project has been omitted for this years allotment .
Health Minister Kaul Singh Thakur informed state assembly here today that the opening of the AIIMS case has been delayed for a year. ‘I was promised by the previous health minister of India Dr. Harshvardhan that Himachal will be considered for setting up of AIIMS in the next year’s plan,”said Thakur. He said that Himachal is sure to have one as now that J P Nadda is health minister and he represents Himachal.
Thakur further informed the house that all the 12 Deputy Commissioners of the state has been ordered to search 200 acres of land in their respective Districts, which may be fit for setting up of AIIMS, and the best one shall be transferred to center. He said that the DC’s are advised that the land must be linked by a pucca road and good of drinking water source. Minister was replying to a question of Gulab Singh Thakur BJP during question hour.
In June this year Centre has written ii states that it wish to build one AIIMS like national hospitals in these states. The Union Health Ministry in its letter advised eleven states to find land to build All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) like institutes and asked them to get back to the ministry within a month.
The states to which letters have been written were Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Assam, Goa, Andhra Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Punjab and Haryana. Himachal instead desired to hand over Tanda Medical college to center for conversion as AIIMS, which was rejected .
Arvind Sharma is an award winning bi-lingual journalist with more than 20 years of experience.
He has worked with Divya Himachal, Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhasker, Vir Partap, Ajit and PTI.
In 2010, he was conferred the Himachal Kesri journalism award. He reports on the Tibetan Government in Exile, politics, sports, tourism and other topics. He lives in Dharamshala.
