NEW DELHI: Nearly a third of the faculty posts at India’s premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) are vacant, the Center informed fellows of the Indian Institute of Medical Sciences, exposing a huge staffing gap between the old and newly established institutions.In a written reply to Shri Golla Baburao’s question, Health Minister Shri Prataprao Jadhav listed out the institutional details of sanctioned, filled and vacant posts in 20 functioning AIIMS.Data shows that there is a serious shortage of teachers nationwide. At AIIMS, New Delhi, the country’s flagship institution, 446 posts out of 1,306 sanctioned faculty posts are vacant. There are 184 vacancies in Jodhpur, 138 in Mangalagiri, 135 in Nagpur, 134 in Kalyani and 126 in Rishikesh.Newer institutions appear to be particularly nervous. AIIMS Madurai has only 70 teaching staff as against the total approved teaching staff of 183 and 113 vacancies. There are 105 teaching posts vacant in Rajkot, 98 teaching posts in Raebareli and 96 teaching posts in Gorakhpur.The shortage is even more pronounced among non-teaching staff, which includes nursing staff, technicians, administrative staff and support service staff critical to hospital operations. There are 17,205 non-teaching posts vacant in 20 AIIMS.AIIMS New Delhi alone has 2,542 non-teaching vacancies. There are 1,144 vacancies in Rishikesh, 1,132 in Patna, 1,069 in Raipur, 1,026 in Bhubaneswar and 1,050 in Kalyani. In AIIMS Madurai, only 40 out of 911 sanctioned posts for non-teaching staff have been filled, leaving 871 vacancies.The ministry said the creation and recruitment of positions is an ongoing process. Each AIIMS has a standing selection committee constituted under the respective Act for recruitment of teachers.To bridge this gap, the government has allowed retired teachers below the age of 70 to participate in the new AIIMS on a contractual basis. A visiting faculty program was introduced, inviting professors from other institutions to teach. Recruitment for nursing staff is conducted through the Nursing Care Recruitment Common Eligibility Test (NORCET), while category B and C non-teaching staff posts are conducted through the Common Recruitment Examination (CRE). Junior and senior residents are selected twice a year through the INI-CET and INI-SS examinations.The disclosure comes at a time when the AIIMS institution is rapidly expanding with increasing number of patients, academic seats and super-specialty services. The size of the vacancies has raised concerns about whether staffing levels can keep up with infrastructure growth and growing demand for tertiary care.
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