"The progress of construction work is good... Two-and-half year's time is probably the fastest completion of a medical college and hospital of this magnitude," he said after visiting the AIIMS campus here.
The academic session of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar started last year and the hospital here will have 1,000 beds and 39 super speciality branches.
In case of AIIMS-Delhi the hospital started functioning nine years after the commencement of the medical college.
The central minister, however, expressed dissatisfaction with the quality of construction work. "I spoke to the construction agencies and asked them to fix a timeline for completion of the construction work. Our priority is the fast completion of the hospital."
Azad expressed concern over the attitude of young doctors who refuse to work in rural areas and called upon the students of AIIMS-Bhubaneswar to focus on the health care of rural people.
"About 99 per cent of young doctors want to stay in Delhi no matter from which part of the country they belong to. Even 95 per cent medical students want to practise in the state capitals. This is a very bad trend. Doctors can earn money even at a later stage of life but they should serve the rural people when they are young," he added.
