- (1.) Delhi, the National Capital of the country is also the seat of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, better known as 'AIIMS', an autonomous premier institution of national importance. AIIMS- 'an institution of excellence for excellence':
(2.) The Health Survey and Development Committee, popularly known as the Bhore Committee, in its report published in 1946 recommended the establishment of a national medical centre at Delhi which will concentrate on training well qualified teachers and research workers in order that a steady stream of these could be maintained to meet the needs of the rapidly expanding health activities throughout the country. After the attainment of independence, the Union Ministry of Health proceeded to implement the challenging idea. A munificent grant of one million pounds by the Government of New Zealand through the Colombo Plan helped to translate the idea into a reality. An Act of Parliament in 1956 established the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) as an autonomous Institution of national importance and defined its objectives and functions. (See Prospectus Post-graduate Courses, January, 1996).
(3.) The All India Institute of Medical Sciences Act, 1956 (hereinafter the Act, for short) sets out the Statement of Objects and Reasons as under :- "For improving professional competence among medical practitioners, it is necessary to place a high standard of medical education, both post-graduate and under-graduate, before all medical colleges and other allied institutions in the country. Similarly, for the promotion of medical research it is necessary that the country should attain self-sufficiency in post-graduate medical education. These objectives are hardly capable of realisation unless facilities of a very high order for both under graduate and post-graduate medical education and research are provided by a central authority in one place. The Bill seeks to achieve these ends by the establishment in New Delhi of an institution under the name of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. The Institute will develop partners of teaching in under-graduate and post-graduate medical education in all its branches so as to demonstrate a high standard of medical education to all medical colleges and other allied institutions, will provide facilities of a high order for training of personnel in all important branches of health activities and also for medical research in its various aspects. The Institute will have the power to grant medical degrees, diplomas and other academic distinctions which would be recognised medical degrees for the purpose of the Indian Medical Council Act, 1933.";