New Delhi : Land issues are apparently delaying the much awaited project to set up second All India Institute of Medical Science (AIIMS) in Bihar which had been scheduled to set up in Darbhanga. The reasoning appears lack of finalisation of the land.

In 2015-16, the project of setting up second AIIMS in the state was proposed in Union Budget. The centre had asked the state to find more alternative locations of 200 acre land along with requisite infrastructure.

A senior official in the Health and Family Welfare Ministry informed IANS, "We had finalised the land, but it is clashing with a heritage building. The location is not good and the state has been given the responsibility to find another slot for AIIMS."

"For the moment, it is the state's responsibility to find an alternative land. All the other AIIMS, as promised by the government, are approved. Only the one in Darbhanga is pending. The state may find another place in the same district or in any other district as per their choice," the official further added.

The first AIIMS in the state is based in Patna which was established in 2012 which works autonomously under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Six new AIIMS have already been made open to provide public service which are based in Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh), Bhubaneswar (Odisha), Jodhpur (Rajasthan), Patna (Bihar), Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Rishikesh (Uttarakhand).

team earlier reported that Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave approval for setting three AIIMS, including two in Jammu and Kashmir, and one in Gujarat.

Read Also: Union Cabinet nod to 3 more AIIMS with 750 bed capacity each

Apart from these projects, the government has also given its nod for setting up AIIMS in Rae Bareli (U.P.), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Kalyani (West Bengal) and Mangalagiri in Guntur (A.P.), Gorakhpur (U.P.), Bathinda (Punjab), Guwahati (Assam), Bilaspur (Himachal Pradesh), Madurai (Tamil Nadu), Bibi Nagar (Telangana) and Deoghar (Jharkhand).