36% AIIMS faculty positions vacant across 20 functioning medical colleges

NEW DELHI: More than 36% faculty positions at the 20 functional All Indian Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) are currently lying vacant, shows data presented by central government in Lok Sabha recently.

According to data shared by Prataprao Jadhav, the minister of state of health and family welfare, in response to queries made by BJP’s Jaipur MP Manju Sharma, of 5,799 posts sanctioned for teachers, 3,693 are currently filled, while no appointments have been made on the remaining 2106.

These figures represent an improvement over last year’s, when 2,252 out of 5,742 (39.2%) teaching posts were unfilled. The proportion at the premier medical institutes has steadily declined from more than 60% in 2019-20, with a net 1,668 new faculty members hired since then.

AIIMS Delhi Teaching Posts: 34.4% vacant

AIIMS Delhi, the oldest and the largest in the list and India’s top-ranking medical college , fared only slightly better than the national average with a vacancy rate of 34.4% - 425 out of 1,235 posts. That said, the staffing situation was much better in 2023-24 when close to 70% of posts were filled.

AIIMS Madurai (Tamil Nadu) currently has the highest vacancy of 72.1%, with only 51 faculty members hired against the total capacity of 183.

The medical colleges with the highest vacancies are given below.

AIIMS: Vacant teaching posts

On the other hand, AIIMS Bhubaneswar (Odisha) recorded the lowest vacancy figure of 23.5% out of 315 sanctioned posts.

Sharma, in her questions, had sought to know whether all AIIMS in the country are functioning at their full capacity despite the shortage of human resources. In response, the government informed that the recruitment of faculty and non-faculty staff in various AIIMS is a continuous process.

“In addition to AIIMS New Delhi, 6 AIIMS set up under Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), viz AIIMS at Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Raipur, Patna and Rishikesh are fully functional and the remaining AIIMS are at various stages of operationalisation,” reads the answer provided by the ministry.

Replying to another query about paucity of staff at AIIMS Delhi, posed by TMC’s Uluberia (West Bengal) MP Sajda Ahmed, Jadhav said that the Centre regularly conducts Standing Selection Committee meetings, Nursing Officer Recruitment Common Eligibility Test (NORCET), Common Recruitment Examination (CRE) and Departmental Promotion Committee meetings to fill up vacant posts at the institute.