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Manmohan asks Azad to restructure AIIMS

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has called for a “radical reform” in the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) so that it becomes not just a model for similar institutions in the country but also achieves levels of excellence on a par with the best medical institutions in the world.

In a letter to Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Prime Minister has asked for a “successful and innovative” restructuring of this premier institution whereby it can respond more effectively to contemporary needs and realities.

Directing Mr. Azad to take up this as a priority task, Dr. Singh said the government should have a vision of what this great institution should aspire to become, and hence the agenda should be far-reaching. He suggested that the recommendations of the M.S. Valiathan Committee, that was set up to review the functioning of the AIIMS, be examined without delay. He would review the progress made by the Ministry in this regard after a month.

The four-member committee, set up in July 2006 at the peak of the anti-reservation agitation to review the functioning of the AIIMS, recommended, among other things, more autonomy to the institution, and said the Union Health and Family Welfare Minister should not be the president of the Institute or in the Institute Body (IB), which was the highest decision making body.

The committee suggested that the selection for the Director’s post be done by a search-cum-selection committee headed by the president of the institute and the age of retirement be raised from 62 to 65.

The AIIMS had become the nerve-centre of protests against the Centre’s move to give 27 per cent reservation to the Other Backward Classes in higher educational institutions.

This resulted in a bitter row between the then Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Anbumani Ramadoss and the former AIIMS Director, P. Venugopal.

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