PM Modi attends Kullu Dussehra Festival, inaugurates AIIMS Bilaspur on his Himachal Pradesh visit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Twitter/@BJP4India

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated the fully functional All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Himachal Pradesh’s Bilaspur.

AIIMS Bilaspur, constructed at a cost of more than Rs 1,470 crore, is a state-of-the-art hospital with 18 specialty and 17 super specialty departments, 18 modular operation theatres and 750 beds with 64 ICU beds.

Spread over 247 acres, the hospital is equipped with 24 hours emergency and dialysis facilities, modern diagnostic machines like ultrasonography, CT scan, MRI etc., Amrit Pharmacy and Jan Aushadhi Kendra and also a 30-bedded AYUSH block.

The hospital has also set up the Centre for Digital Health to provide health services in tribal and inaccessible tribal areas of Himachal Pradesh.

The hospital will admit 100 students for MBBS course and 60 students for nursing courses every year.

The previous governments only laid foundation stones and forgot about the actual projects once the elections were over, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said as he sounded the poll bugle literally — in Himachal Pradesh.

At a rally held here Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur presented the PM with a Ransingha, a trumpet-like traditional instrument. Modi played it and later said, This marks the beginning of each future victory.

He said the BJP government not only lays the stones but also inaugurates the development projects.

He was addressing the meeting at the Luhnu ground after inaugurating an AIIMS hospital and a hydro engineering college, the foundations stones for which were laid by him in 2017.

Modi headed next to Kullu to witness the Dussehra celebrations there. He began his speech with the slogan Jai Mata Naina Deviji, the temple to which is located in Bilaspur district itself. He also extended Dussehra greetings.

He said Himachal Pradesh plays a crucial role in ‘Rashtra Raksha’ (national security) and now with the new AIIMS in Bilaspur, it will also play a pivotal role in ‘Jeevan Raksha’ (saving lives).

Modi congratulated Himachal for becoming the first state to formulate a drone policy. Drones will be used for transportation of medicines and other goods, he added.

Apart from launching the hospital and the college, Modi laid the foundation stones or inaugurated other development projects at Wednesday’s event. Altogether, the projects are worth Rs 3, 650 crore today.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended greetings to citizens on the occasion of Dussehra and expressed his happiness to be a part of the International Kullu Dussehra Festival that is to be celebrated here from October 5 to 11 at the Dhalpur Ground in Kullu.

The festival is unique in the sense that it is the congregation of more than 300 deities of the valley. On the first day of the Festival, obeisance is paid to the Deities in their well-decorated palanquins at the temple of the Chief Deity Bhagwan Raghunath Ji and then it proceeds to the Dhalpur Ground.

“I am elated to provide the citizens of Himachal Pradesh with the gifts of projects of education, health, and infrastructure worth thousands of crores,” PM Modi said adding that he will seek the blessings for the country by joining the Raghunath Ji Yatra.

“I am very fortunate to participate in the Kullu festival after so many years,” he added.

“The development projects inaugurated today on the occasion of Vijayadashami will play an important role in achieving the vision of a developed India by following the ‘Panch Pran’. Today, Bilaspur has got the double gift of education and medical facilities,” PM Modi said.

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