Notwithstanding AIIMS being lately penalised and served 17 notices by civic bodies for failing to check mosquito-breeding in its campus, Health Minister J P Nadda today asked the premier institute to strive to win the first prize under 'Kayakalp', an initiative aimed at keeping public health facilities clean and hygienic.
"As AIIMS is the best it should win the prize of Rs 5 crores under the Kayakalp initiative. And the competition is going to take place among only 13 institutions. I think AIIMS thus has a very great opportunity..." Nadda said.
He was speaking at the inauguration of a public health exhibition themed on 'Be Clean. Be Healthy' on the 60th Institute Day of the AIIMS (All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences).
AIIMS lately has been challaned on almost eight occasions and 17 notices been served by the NDMC for "failing" to take preventive measures to check breeding of mosquitoes. A notice was later sent to the AIIMS Director, for violating provisions of the NDMC Act, which asked it to clear up breeding spots at the earliest.
According to several faculty members residing at eastern and western areas of the AIIMS residential campus, many staff and their family members have been affected by dengue in the past one month, including former CVO of the institute, Sanjiv Chaturvedi.
Under the 'Kayakalp' initiative, Central health institutions across India will compete on several parameters of cleanliness.
The winner of the first prize will be awarded Rs 5 crore, the second winner will get Rs 3 crore and the third winner will get Rs 1 crore.
Nadda further said that the success and development of the upcoming 15 AIIMS would depend on the efforts of the medical professionals at the premier institute here and urged them to shoulder the responsibility in this task.
"AIIMS has set a benchmark in the field of healthcare not only at the national level but internationally also," he said.
Fifteen years ago, Nadda said, people would go outside the country if they didn't get a chance to work at AIIMS here as professors and faculty members at no other institute matched the standards of AIIMS New Delhi.
"Thus there is great amount of responsibility on our shoulders to ensure that the new institutes will be "AIIMS" and not "AIIMS-like," Nadda said.
The Health Minister assured of all kinds of support from his side in this context. "Any institute composes of two aspects -- the hardware aspect and the software aspect. We will take care of the hardware aspect.
