NEW DELHI: The institute body of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) has finally nominated five members who were not nominated for the past 9 months. The body is responsible for taking policy-level decisions including the task of selecting a president of the institute, which has been lying vacant for nearly nine months.
The members included Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya along with four others. This comes after it was reported by The Morning Standard earlier on February 24 that the institute body is functioning without a president for nearly nine months and also does not have the required number of members to work on policy-making decisions.
While Mandaviya has been nominated as a member now, according to the sources, he was already conducting interactive meetings in an unofficial capacity in the president’s office and the Officer on Special Duty (OSD) was reporting to him.
As per the Gazette Notification issued on March 9, Mandaviya has been nominated as a member under Sub-section 4 (e) of the AIIMS Act which states five persons of whom one should be a nonmedical scientist representing the Indian Science Congress Association, to be nominated by the Central Government.
Four representatives of the medical faculties of Indian universities were also nominated. The four nominated members are Dr Pranjal Modi, Vice-Chancellor of Gujarat University of Transplantation Sciences in Ahmedabad, Prof. Vijay Kumar Shukla,
Rector and Vice-Chancellor at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, Dr Kameshwar Prasad, Director at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences, Ranchi, and Dr Prem Nair, Medical Director at Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences, Kochi.
With no official notification issued for the post of the president so far, several policy-related issues - which require a president for decision making - have been delayed such as the issue of salary for foreign nationals studying in the institute.
When contacted, a senior official said that no notification was issued by the Prime Minister’s Office on this. “There has been no notification so far from the PMO with respect to the nomination to the president post of the Institute Body of AIIMS,” he said.
Meanwhile, the process of selecting the new director is on, where several prominent faces are in the line including Indian Council of Medical Research Director Dr Balram Bhargava. The senior-most doctor in the list is Dr Kaushal K Verma, Professor, and Head of Department of Dermatology and Venereology.