MBBS seats in six new AIIMS to be doubled

Here’s a great bit of news for those aspiring to be doctors. All six new all India institutes of medical science (AIIMS), including the one at Patna, will double their intake in the MBBS course from the upcoming session.

These AIIMS units, which commenced operations last year, will admit 100 students each to the MBBS course from the session beginning August, as against the intake of just 50 students each in 2012.

Secretary for health and family welfare in the union government, Keshav Desiraju, has confirmed the move to enhance the intake of students in each of these six AIIMS units.

"All six AIIMS units have made good progress by way of development of infrastructure. As such, it has been decided to allow them to admit 100 students to the MBBS course from this year," Desiraju told HT.

The beneficiary AIIMS units are located at Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Raipur (Chattisgarh), Rishikesh (Uttrakhand), Jodhpur (Rajasthan) and Patna (Bihar).

Desiraju, who was here on a two-day visit, inspected the progress of infrastructure development work at AIIMS-Patna complex on Friday, before confirming to HT that the intake of MBBS students was being doubled.

Talking exclusively to HT, Desiraju said: "Though the work on the campus is not finished yet, it has panned out well. AIIMS-Patna has successfully got on with first year teaching and now needs to build up on the good start."

He also confirmed that beginning this year, nursing classes wouldl also be introduced at AIIMS-Patna. The first batch will comprise 60 students.

"By August-September this year, AIIMS-Patna will have 210 students on the campus - 100 fresh medicos and 60 nursing entrants, in addition to 50 medicos of the first (2012) batch," Desiraju said.