Notify setting up of Jammu AIIMS in govt gazette: JKNPP

The Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party today asked the Centre to notify setting up of Jammu AIIMS in its gazette and accused the government of misleading people of the region on the issue.
"The government and the ministers are deceiving the people of Jammu. The government must notify the setting up of the AIIMS in Jammu in the government gazette before July 20 or it must prepare itself to face the music," JKNPP chairman Harsh Dev Singh said.
Accusing the MoS in the PMO, Jitendra Singh, of misleading the people of Jammu, JKNPP leader said that the minister was making 'immature and misleading statements'.

He said that during the previous NDA government-led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the then Union Health minister Sushma Swaraj had sanctioned only Rs 120 crore for setting up of AIIMS in Jammu but that was a very small amount as setting up of the premier institute would cost not less than Rs 1,600 crore.
Hitting out at BJP leadership for following 'deceitful politics', Singh said the people of Jammu region were no naives and could no longer be be-fooled by the motiveless extravagance of the 'saffron party' whose only objective was to remain glued to power.
He said that BJP leaders need to know that prior to 2012, no AIIMS could be established without an Act of Parliament and without amending the AIIMS Act 1956.

He said it was by the virtue of AIIMS (Amendment) Act 2012 that powers to establish the institute were also conferred upon the central government which could thereafter issue a notification after a cabinet nod.

He said that the notification was also required to be published in the Gazette of India which alone could be deemed to be a sanction for the purpose of AIIMS establishment.
Singh said that the deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh who had given an assurance on June 18 to the AIIMS coordination Committee that written order on AIIMS would be made available before July 20 was merely a hyperbole and an anti-climax.

The written order by any central government authority on AIIMS was meaningless until and unless the said institute is sanctioned in conformity with the stipulations laid down in the AIIMS Act with publication of notification to that effect in the Gazette of India, he said.
Peoples' rage in Jammu already having reached its crescendo, it would be impossible for the 'Saffron Party' to retrieve its image which has been highly disfigured and is getting fragmented with each passing day, he said.
He warned of a mass movement to seek the party's ouster if AIIMS sanction was not legally and procedurally made before July 20.