Nearly 40% faculty posts in AIIMS lying vacant: Health ministry

NEW DELHI: Nearly 40% of faculty posts are lying vacant across the 20 functional All India Institutes of Medical Science (AIIMS), according to government data shared in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday. Out of 5,742 sanctioned faculty posts, 2,252 are lying vacant. There are six AIIMS which are functioning with a faculty shortage of over 50%.

At AIIMS Delhi, India’s top medical college, 29.5% – close to a third – of the teaching posts are vacant. And at AIIMS Madurai, close to three quarters of the teaching posts are vacant.

Union minister of state for health Bharati Pravin Pawar shared the details on vacant faculty posts of AIIMS in parliament while responding to questions asked by Congress president and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in Rajya Sabha, Mallikarjun Kharge.

AIIMS faculty shortage

There are a total of 2,169 MBBS seats in 20 AIIMS across India. With a shortage of 2,252 faculty posts out of the sanctioned 5,742, all these institutions are running with a shortage of about 39.2%.

AIIMS faculty shortage and MBBS seats

As many as six AIIMS have over 50% faculty shortage. These are AIIMS Madurai, AIIMS Rajkot, AIIMS Kalyani, AIIMS Jammu, AIIMS Nagpur and AIIMS Guwahati. AIIMS Raebareli, AIIMS Bilaspur and AIIMS Mangalagiri have close to half the posts vacant as well.

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AIIMS Madurai: 74% posts vacant

Among all the central government-run premiere medical institutions, AIIMS Madurai with 136 vacancies out of 183 sanctioned posts has the highest faculty shortage of 74.3%.

AIIMS Madurai, sanctioned in 2018, is yet to move to a permanent campus. The institute has been running MBBS classes for 50 students at a temporary campus at Government Medical College (GMC), Ramanathapuram, since April 2022. The construction of the boundary wall of the permanent campus has been completed and the targeted date of completion of the project is October 2026.

AIIMS Bhubaneswar has a faculty shortage of at least 25%.

Non-functional AIIMS

There are 23 AIIMS in the country. The government has sanctioned 22 AIIMS under PM Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) between 2012 and 2020. Only 20 out of 23 are functional as of now, shows the data shared by Pawar in response to a question asked by Binoy Viswam, Rajya Sabha MP from Kerala.

AIIMS Awantipora (Jammu and Kashmir) and AIIMS Manethi (Haryana), both sanctioned in 2019, and AIIMS Darbhanga (Bihar), in 2020, are yet to begin their academic sessions. The authorities at these three institutions did not utilise the approved project cost.

New AIIMS: Funds utilised

AIIMS Jammu (sanctioned in 2019) and Madurai are functioning without OPD (outpatient department) or IPD (inpatient department).