‘AIIMS at Awantipora to be completed by January 2025’

SRINAGAR — The two AIIMS, being set up at Awantipora in south Kashmir and Vijaypur in the Jammu province, under the Prime Minister’s developmental package for the State are expected to be completed by January 2023 and 2025 respectively.

Responding to a question in Rajya Sabha, the Minister of State in the ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Ashwini Kumar Choubey said that AIIMS at Vijaypur is coming up at an approved outlay of Rs. 1661 crores and target date for completion of project is January 2023.

He said that the AIIMS at Awantipora, with an approved outlay of Rs. 1828 crores, is expected to be completed by January 2025.

He said that 21 new AIIMS were approved by the Union Government in various parts of the country. Of these, he said, six (6) new AIIMS are already functional in Patna (Bihar), Raipur (Chhattisgarh), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhubaneswar (Orissa), Jodhpur (Rajasthan) and Rishikesh (Uttaranchal).

South Kashmir is especially deficient in specialized medical facilities and patients have to undertake a journey of up to two to three hours to reach Srinagar, the summer capital of the State, for advanced treatment of serious ailments. The coming up of AIIMS in the vicinity will improve the situation, officials underlined.

According to the official, 1886 kanals and 5 marals (235.75 acres) at Awantipora and 1954 kanals and 6 marlas (244.25 acres) at Vijaypur stand transferred and handed over to the Central Public Works Department which is the executing agency for these projects.

In January this year, the State’s Administrative Council sanctioned Rs. 87 crore for removing hurdles in the way of building two AIIMS.

The J&K government has undertaken to ensure hassle-free access to both sites by paying for land acquisition for development of roadway or for any other purpose for realizing the premier medical institutes. However, land acquisition and removal of other bottlenecks has been a main hurdle for the last couple of years.