The All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) are a group of autonomous public medical colleges of higher education in India. The institutes were established by an Act of Parliament with the objective of developing patterns of teaching in undergraduate and postgraduate medical education in all its branches, and to attain self-sufficiency in postgraduate medical education. Each AIIMS functions as an Institute of National Importance (INI) and operates under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
| Type | Group of autonomous public medical institutes |
|---|---|
| Sector | Public (Central Government) |
| Parent ministry | Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India |
| Statutory basis | All India Institute of Medical Sciences Act, 1956 |
| Status | Institutes of National Importance |
| First institute | AIIMS New Delhi (1956) |
| Country | India |
The proposal for an apex medical institution in India was discussed in the years following independence, drawing on recommendations of the Health Survey and Development Committee (the Bhore Committee, 1946), which had advocated the establishment of a national centre for postgraduate medical education and research. The first institute, AIIMS New Delhi, was established in 1956 through the All India Institute of Medical Sciences Act, 1956, passed by Parliament. The Act conferred on the institute the powers of an autonomous body with authority to grant its own degrees.
For several decades, AIIMS New Delhi remained the sole institution of its kind. The expansion of the AIIMS system began under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY), launched in 2003, which envisaged the creation of additional AIIMS-like institutions in different parts of the country to correct regional imbalances in tertiary healthcare and medical education.
Under the first phase of PMSSY, six new AIIMS were sanctioned at Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Jodhpur (Rajasthan), Patna (Bihar), Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Rishikesh (Uttarakhand). These institutes began functioning progressively from around 2012 onwards. Subsequent phases of PMSSY added further institutes, including those at Raebareli (Uttar Pradesh), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Mangalagiri (Andhra Pradesh), Kalyani (West Bengal), Gorakhpur (Uttar Pradesh), Bathinda (Punjab), Bibinagar (Telangana), Deoghar (Jharkhand), Bilaspur (Himachal Pradesh), Rajkot (Gujarat), Guwahati (Assam), Madurai (Tamil Nadu), Awantipora (Jammu and Kashmir), Vijaypur/Samba (Jammu and Kashmir) and others.
To bring the new AIIMS within a unified statutory framework, the original Act was amended; the AIIMS (Amendment) Acts extended the provisions of the 1956 Act to the newly established institutes, granting them the same autonomous status and degree-granting powers as AIIMS New Delhi.
Each AIIMS undertakes:
Admission to MBBS at AIIMS was earlier through a separate national entrance examination conducted by AIIMS New Delhi. From 2020, admissions to MBBS courses at all AIIMS were brought under the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET-UG), in line with the National Medical Commission Act, 2019.
Each AIIMS is headed by a Director and governed by an Institute Body and a Governing Body, with the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare typically serving as the President of the Institute Body. The institutes are funded primarily by grants from the Government of India.
The AIIMS system is widely regarded as the apex public-sector framework for medical education, research and tertiary care in India. AIIMS New Delhi in particular has been consistently ranked as the top medical institution in the country in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) of the Ministry of Education. Collectively, the institutes serve as referral centres for complex medical cases and as training grounds for a substantial share of India's specialist medical workforce.