The cabinet today approved the formation of societies to run six centrally funded AIIMS-like institutions in India. The decision was taken at a meeting of the union cabinet chaired by prime minister Manmohan Singh here.

These societies will facilitate greater autonomy and faster execution of the projects and will expedite release of funds from the government. These will be functional till the institutions are brought under an Act of Parliament.

The institutions are being set up under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) which was set up in March 2006 to check the inequity in availability of affordable tertiary healthcare and to improve quality medical education in the country.

Each of these institutions will be registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. The formation of societies will give these institutions a governance structure, which is not there at present.

There will also be a board of governors with health secretary as chairperson with representatives from the state governments. Persons from the field of science and medicine will be nominated by the governing council. The governing council under the chairmanship of the health minister would have representatives from concerned ministries or departments of the government and other related organizations. This will be the apex body deciding all policy matters of the institutes.

The AIIMS-like institutions are being set up, one each in Bihar (Patna), Chattisgarh (Raipur), Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal), Orissa (Bhubaneshwar), Rajasthan (Jodhpur) and Uttarakhand (Rishikesh) at an estimated cost of Rs. 840 crore per institution including nursing colleges.