New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry has an ambitious plan to decongest the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) as it plans to build a 'new campus' and shift its 'non-critical' areas from the institute's campus to Jhajjar.

The Ministry, which received a nod from the Haryana government in the form of 300 acres of land, will now present to the Planning Commission at a meeting scheduled tomorrow, a Rs.5,000 crore decongestion plan for the premier institute.

According to the proposal, the "new campus" will house medical college and hospital (MBBS), college of nursing, centre of public health and a geriatrics centre.

The proposal further states that, "The critical care areas would be retained in the Ansari Nagar campus area, which is also the mother campus, while the non-critical areas are to be shifted to the Jhajjar campus."

New centres with hospital bed capacity of 300 in Jhajjar are to be established in order to meet the advanced research and development needs of various disciplines and emerging areas.

The present situation of AIIMS, according to an official data is 2424 beds with the bed-patient ratio being 1:65; the faculty- patient ratio 1:5,277; and the doctor-patient ratio being 1:1,300.

The Outdoor Patient Department's (OPD) attendance in AIIMS on any given day stands at 8000 only.

"These figures speak volumes of the need to decongest the premier institute urgently. The new campus at Jhajjar is expected to cater to the health needs of the people residing in south Delhi, west Delhi, north- west Delhi and north Delhi, besides people from other states like Rajasthan, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. A detailed project report will be prepared once the Planning Commission gives its approval," said an official in the ministry.

The Planning Commission, with no plan in place for over a year now, recently questioned the Health Ministry for sitting on the land after which officials began working on it.