Work on Darbhanga AIIMS to begin soon: Nadda

Union health minister and BJP national president JP Nadda on Friday said work on the proposed All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Darbhanga, 140 kms north-east of Patna, would begin soon.
“A new agency has been appointed. Its structural design is being made, and soon we will make an impressive AIIMS in Darbhanga,” Nadda said, while speaking at a function to inaugurate the state-of-the-art 154-bed regional institute of ophthalmology (RIO) building, built for ₹188 crore at the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) in Patna.
Nadda said he was visiting Darbhanga tomorrow to see the land.
“The land is low lying, but I thank Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar for giving us land, and also the Bihar government for extending financial support to fill the land,” said Nadda.
Bihar has given 182 acres of land for the AIIMS-Darbhanga project.
CM Kumar recalled how the late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had, in 2003, approved AIIMS in Patna, which was doing good work.
On this occasion, Nadda recalled the achievements of the Modi government in the health sector in the past 10 years.
“There were six AIIMS institutions, but now we are making 22,” the Union health minister said.
He said the Centre had approved 75 new medical colleges and of them five super-specialty centres will be in Bihar.
Highlighting the achievements of the Union government’s Ayushman Bharat health coverage scheme, he said, “India has the world’s largest health coverage program, the Ayushman Bharat scheme, which supports poor people by providing 5 lakh rupees to 55 crore individuals.”
The minister said India was number one in terms of universal health coverage.
While speaking about the importance of IGIMS, he said, “The IGIMS here serves not just Bihar but also people from Bengal, Odisha, and Nepal. I congratulate the institute here for doing excellent work”.
Earlier, Nadda inaugurated the eye building of the IGIMS and other medical facilities in the state.
“The modular operation theatre features world-class and the latest technology machines, dedicated to the people of Bihar,” he added.
The RIO will offer state-of-the-art cornea and refractive (LASIK) facilities to patients. Besides, vitro-retina and Uvea services, treatment for glaucoma and oculoplastic and squint would also be provided here, said Dr Bibhuti Prassan Sinha, deputy director (administration) and professor and head of ophthalmology at IGIMS.
CM Kumar said, “Earlier, the number of beds in IGIMS was 770. Later, a decision was made to increase the number of beds to 2500. Currently, the hospital has 1,370. While 500 additional beds would be added by the year end, another 1,200 beds in superspecialty hospital will be constructed by next year, taking the bed capacity of the IGIMS to over 3,000.”
Drawing a comparison of the work done prior to and post-2005, Kumar said, “From 39 patients coming to a PHC in a month in 2005 to 11,000-plus now; distribution of free drugs, facility of free investigations and ambulance, we have done a lot of work in the health sector,” he said.
Kumar said the state now had 11 state-run medical colleges and hospitals as against six earlier, and plans were to open 15 more, of which eight would be set up with the Centre’s support.
He said the capacity of the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH), the state’s first medical college and hospital, which had 1,762 in-patient beds, was being increased to 5,462, to become the largest in the country. Besides, the Nalanda Medical College Hospital (in Patna), Darbhanga Medical College Hospital (Darbhanga), Sri Krishna Medical College Hospital (Muzaffarpur), Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital (Bhagalpur) and the Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical College (Gaya) were also being upgraded to 2,500 beds, he added.
The health minister and CM inaugurated and laid foundation stone of health projects worth ₹850 crore through remote.
Apart from deputy chief ministers Samrat Chaudhary and Vijay Kumar Sinha, water resources minister Vijay Kumar Chaudhary and revenue and land reforms minister Dr Dilip Kumar Jaiswal were also present at the IGIMS.
Later, Nadda visited Bhagalpur and Gaya where he also inaugurated superspecialty blocks at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital in Bhagalpur and the Anugrah Narayan Magadh Medical Collehe Hospital in Gaya.
He is scheduled to visit the Patna Medical College Hospital on Saturday to assess the progress of its superspecialty hospital before leaving for Darbhanga to see the land of the proposed AIIMS at Shobhan.