Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of the much awaited All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday. The institute is being constructed under the Prdhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY)
The ceremony would be held at luhnu Maidan, Bilaspur at 12.30 pm. Himachal Pradesh Governor Acharya Dev Vrat, Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda would also grace the occasion.
Modi is expected to land at the cricket ground around 11.30 am, near the venue of AIIMS at Bilaspur and move ahead to the ceremony spot. AIIMS, Bilaspur is being seen as a major boost to the medical facilities in the state as the people of the state have been rushing to PGI, Chandigarh for specialised treatment till now.
While the establishment of AIIMS at Himachal Pradesh had been in demand for long, it was Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, who in his budget speech of 2015-16 announced a medical institution just like AIIMS for the State.
later, it turned into a political tussle between ruling Congress and the BJP, as both the parties kept accusing one another for delay in the upcoming institute.
While BJP accused Congress of delaying project by not providing land for the institution. Hamirpur MP Anurag Thakur raised the issue of delay a number of times at different political and administrative platforms.
lambasting BJP for delay in the project, Himachal Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh had claimed that the state government had identified and got transferred over 681 bighas of land in the name of health department on April 6 last year and informed the Union Health Ministry on April 24 about the same.