Union Cabinet has cleared the proposals to set up branches of the New Delhi-based All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), arguably the country’s premier Govt.-run medical institution, in Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

Union Ministers Pon Radhakrishnan and Nirmala Sitaraman have informed this in their respective Twitter postings yesterday. It may be recalled that earlier this year, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had given assurance to Parliament during his budget speech to set up AIIMS in Tamil Nadu and Telangana.

The Cabinet formally conveyed approval to the setting up of AIIMS at Thoppur, Madurai at a cost of Rs.1264 crores and at Bibinagar, Telangana at a cost of Rs.1,028 crores. As announced earlier, these Institutes would be set up under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY). Approval has also been conveyed for creating the post one director each in these institutes.

The proposed AIIMS branches would each have 15-20 multi-specialty Departments, 750 hospital beds besides offering 100 MBBS and 60 B.Sc.(Nursing)seats each year to aspiring students. Each day, these institutes would also attend individually to 1,500 outdoor patients besides admitting 1,000 indoor patients each month.

Centre’s quest for providing quality healthcare, medical education and nursing education in the region is thus fulfilled, a statement said. Centre would fully fund the construction and maintenance of the proposed AIIMS at Madurai and Bibinagar. 3000 employment opportunities for technical/non-technical staff is also likely to be created once the institutes become fully operational.