Who should be given credit for establishing AIIMS, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur or Nehru?
The AIIMS hospital in New Delhi came up in 1956 when PM was Nehru. The real effort in setting up this top class hospital goes to India’s first Health Minister Princess Amrit Kaur and foreign donations from western countries. USA supplied many medical equipment free. Foreign grant of £10,00,000 (10 million pounds) received from the New Zealand government under the ‘Colombo plan’ for the construction of New Delhi AIIMS came to the Government of India. She established AIIMS as an international entity through collaborations with the Rockefeller Foundation and the Government of New Zealand, and she encouraged further collaboration with the University of Pittsburgh.
The entire credit for setting up of AIIMS hospital New Delhi in 1956 should go to Princess Amrit Kaur. Foreign donations for this hospital came due to her international campaigns as she became the first woman and the first Asian to preside over the World Health Organization (WHO) governing body in 1950. She also became President of Indian Council of child welfare, Indian Leprosy Association, Tuberculosis Association of India and President of AIIMS, New Delhi which she help build. Princess Amrit Kaur and Health Minister Princess Amrit Kaur had donated her private property named 'Manorville' located in Shimla for the cause of AIIMS.
PM Nehru has little or no role except as constitutional figure head, he inaugurated the top class hospital because he was PM. But look at the narrative of congress and their leftist, communist, librandµ ecosystem narrative. They give all credits to PM Nehru and side-lines Princess Amrit Kaur contribution. Congress leaders do this for a purpose. They think only glorifying Nehru-Gandhi dynasty will garner votes for congress. Thus many good congress leader’s achievements were supressed and the ‘first family’ given all the credits over last 50 years. Needless to say, many headstrong congress leaders left party and over the years congress became party of ‘yes men’ or chamchas or sycophants. Most congress leaders thus today are ‘headless chickens’.
It took 47 years for the next set of 6 AIIMS to be conceptualized and approved (in Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Rishikesh, and Raipur) by AB Vajpayee government in 2003 and formally established and operationalized in 2012. Clearly, first AIIMS was just accidental event by individual effort of Princess Amrit Kaur and not part of Indian government policy. Only during AB Vajpayee era, a policy decision was taken to replicate AIIMS type high-end research led government hospitals across the country. The reason for this was excessive load on New Delhi AIIMS regarding medical research.
Picture source: Google / Respective rightful owner
https://www.aakash.ac.in/blog/rajkumari-amrit-kaur-the-founder-of-aiims/
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