Make AIIMS among top ten institutes in world: PM

NEW DELHI - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Friday called for making the premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences one of the top ten medical institutes in the world.

Addressing the 38th Convocation of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in the national capital, the prime minister said changes in the AIIMS system were needed for attaining this goal.

We should aim at nothing less than making AIIMS one of the ten best medical universities in the world by the year 2020. This is not going to be easy. But it can be done. The government, on its part, will support all endeavours in this direction, the prime minister said.

Backing the recommendations made by the Veliathan Committee which recently gave its report on the changes needed in the AIIMS system, the prime minister said that a more ambitious vision was needed.

As all of you are aware, the Veliathan Committee reflected on some of these issues and produced, I believe, a very good report. I suggested to Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad last year that we should have an ambitious and befitting vision of what this great institution should aspire to become and that we should, therefore, work on a far reaching agenda of reform, he said.

The Veliathan Committee, among other recommendations, had suggested for autonomy of the institution saying it was no more feasible for the health ministry to ‘preside over individual institutes’.

The government will consider the recommendations expeditiously and do what is in the best interest of the Institute, he added.