New Delhi witnessed a heated discussion in the Rajya Sabha on Monday as Congress MP Pramod Tiwari spotlighted the persistent challenges plaguing AIIMS Raebareli. Over a decade after its foundation stone was laid, the premier medical institute in Uttar Pradesh remains woefully understaffed and underdeveloped, depriving millions of essential healthcare services.
Tiwari painted a grim picture of the facility’s current state. Originally designed with 960 beds, it now operates with just 610. Of the 200 sanctioned senior resident doctor positions, only 37 are filled. Similarly, just 7 out of 33 approved professor posts are occupied. ‘This is not just a healthcare crisis; it’s crippling an educational institution meant to train future doctors,’ he asserted.
The MP traced the institute’s origins to October 8, 2013, during the UPA-2 government, crediting Sonia Gandhi’s vision for its inception in Raebareli. He accused the current administration of political vendetta, pointing out zero allocations in the latest budget. ‘Health and education must transcend politics,’ Tiwari urged, calling for immediate intervention to operationalize the institute at full capacity.
In a related concern, Shiv Sena MP Rajani Ashokrao Patil drew attention to the agrarian distress in Maharashtra’s Marathwada region. She revealed that over 250 farmers in Beed district alone have taken their lives this year due to drought, floods, and mounting debts. Patil contrasted the plight of small farmers trapped in debt cycles with wealthy defaulters who escape accountability, demanding a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) to provide economic stability.
These interventions underscore the urgent need for policy reforms in healthcare infrastructure and farmer welfare, pressing the government to act decisively amid rising public discontent.