Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate Gujarat's first AIIMS at Rajkot on February 25

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate Gujarat’s first All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Rajkot on February 25, state Health Minister Rushikesh Patel said on Friday. This will be one of the five AIIMS to be dedicated to the nation by the prime minister from Rajkot on February 25, the minister said. While the out-patient department (OPD) of the super-speciality hospital near Para Pipaliya village on the outskirts of Rajkot city is already operational, Modi will inaugurate the in-patient department (IPD), Patel told reporters in Gandhinagar.

Modi laid the foundation stone for Rajkot AIIMS through video-conferencing in December 2020. "Spread across 201 acres, Rajkot AIIMS is a world-class hospital with 720 beds, including ICU and super-speciality beds. On February 25, the prime minister will inaugurate 23 operation theatres, 30-bed AYUSH block and 250 beds of IPD. The remaining beds will be made available gradually," Patel said. The hospital was built at the cost of Rs 1,195 crore, he said, adding that the OPD has already served nearly 1.44 lakh patients so far.

PM Modi inaugurated four other AIIMS

As per a government release, the prime minister will arrive at Rajkot AIIMS on Sunday afternoon and address a rally at the Race Course ground in the city later in the evening. He will take part in a kilometre-long roadshow from the old airport to the venue of the public rally, it stated. During the function, the prime minister will also virtually inaugurate four other newly-built AIIMS, located in Mangalagiri (Andhra Pradesh), Bathinda (Punjab), Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh), and Kalyani (West Bengal), Patel said.

The five super-speciality hospitals, including the one in Rajkot, have been built by the Centre at a cost of Rs 6,300 crore, he said. Apart from this, Modi will inaugurate and perform ground-breaking for projects of Rs 48,000 crore of different state and Central departments, such as NHAI, Railways, Energy and Petrochemicals, Road and Building, Ports and Health and Family Welfare, the minister said. Of these, projects of Rs 35,700 crore are for Gujarat, while the remaining are for other states, he said.

The prime minister will launch key projects, including power generation projects in Kutch, ground-breaking for the new Mundra Panipat crude-oil pipeline project, new cardiology hospital in Vadodara and doubling of the Rajkot-Surendranagar railway line, among others, Patel said.