None of four sites proposed by Kerala for AIIMS approved by Centre under PMSSY

None of the four sites, including in Ernakulam district, proposed by the State government for setting up an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has been approved in the current phase of the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), said Prataprao Jadhav, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, in Parliament recently.

He was responding to questions raised by three MPs from Kerala — Hibi Eden, M.K. Raghavan, and E.T. Mohammed Basheer. Mr. Jadhav said the Kerala government had identified and proposed four sites for setting up AIIMS: Kinaloor in Kozhikode, Kattakada taluk in Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam and Ernakulam district. “The proposal has not been approved in the current phase of the PMSSY,” he added.

Till date, 22 AIIMS have been sanctioned under the scheme in various parts of the country. However, the upgradation of three medical college hospitals in Kerala—by constructing super-speciality blocks (SSBs) on a Centre-State cost-sharing basis—has been approved under another component of the PMSSY. The hospitals selected for upgradation are Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College Hospital (MCH), TD MCH in Alappuzha, and Kozhikode MCH.

In addition, the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), Thiruvananthapuram, has also been approved for upgradation through the construction of a SSB on a cost-sharing basis between the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, Mr. Jadhav said.