Darbhanga AIIMS

Darbhanga AIIMS is a proposed All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Darbhanga city of the Mithila region in Bihar. The location of the proposed AIIMS is at Shobhan village, the outskirts of the city of Darbhanga.

Description
Darbhanga AIIMS is a proposed medical college cum hospital being built at Shobhan village near the outskirts of Darbhanga city. The AIIMS will be established under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY). There will be 100 UG (MBBS) seats, 60 B.Sc. (Nursing) seats, 15-20 Super Specialty Departments and 750 hospital beds, etc. It is expected that the new AIIMS will cater around 2000 OPD patients per day and around 1000 IPD patients per month.

History
The proposal for the Darbhanga AIIMS (i.e., second AIIMS in Bihar) was announced by Arun Jaitley, the first finance minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, in the 2015-16 union budget. In 2019, the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar proposed for upgradation of Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) as the second AIIMS in Bihar, to the central government. But later the unused 200 acres of land at DMCH was proposed for the site of the proposed AIIMS. Again later the Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar change the location and proposed Shobhan village as the location of the Darbhanga AIIMS. The AIIMS construction team of the Central Government initially rejected the location at Shobhan Village, in the name of the flood area during the survey. But after the formation of NDA collation government again in Bihar, the central government of India approved the location of Shobhan village near the Darbhanga, for the construction of the Darbhanga AIIMS. On 12 February, central team visited the location of Shobhan bypass near the city of Darbhanga for inspection of land and agreed to accept it as land for the proposed Darbhanga AIIMS.

Movements for Darbhanga AIIMS
Due to the political differences between the central and state governments, inauguration of foundation stone of Darbhanga AIIMS was delaying. Therefore, in 2021, Mithila Student Union launched a movement in form of campaign called as "ghar-ghar se intaa laenge, Darbhanga AIIMS banaenge" which translates as "We will bring bricks from house to house and build Darbhanga AIIMS". Under the campaign of the movement, people from Darbhanga, Samastipur, Madhubani and Sitamarhi districts, etc. started collecting bricks from door to door in the Mithila region so that the foundation stone of Darbhanga AIIMS could be laid on 8 September 2021. On 11 September 2023, Mithila Student Union (MSU) went on hunger strike demanding construction of Darbhanga AIIMS. The agitators of the hunger strike said "After Darbhanga, wherever the construction of AIIMS was announced, treatment is being provided and classes are being conducted, but eight years have passed since the announcement of Darbhanga AIIMS, not a single brick has fallen". The protesters again chanted slogans like "ghar-ghar se intaa laenge, Darbhanga AIIMS banaenge".

Similarly on 2 October 2023, BJP MP Gopalji Thakur of Darbhanga Loka Shabha started "Hunger strike" for three days, demanding the construction of the Darbhanga AIIMS as soon as possible.