M Srinivas appointed Director of AIIMS Delhi

M Srinivas, Dean of ESIC Hospital and Medical College in Hyderabad, has been appointed as the Director of AIIMS-Delhi, according to an order issued by the Department of Personnel and Training on September 23.

Dr Srinivas will succeed Randeep Guleria who has been holding the post since March 2017. 
Srinivas was a professor in the Department of Pediatric Surgery at AIIMS-Delhi before he joined ESIC Hospital and Medical College in Hyderabad in 2016.

The order stated the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the appointment of Srinivas to the post of Director, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi.

The appointment is "for a period of five years w.e.f the date of assumption of charge of the post, or till attaining the age of 65 years, or until further orders, whichever is the earliest."

The order was initially dated September 9 but the government later issued a fresh one changing the date to September 23.

It further stated the ACC had given "ex-post facto approval for continuation of Dr Randeep Guleria as Director AIIMS, New Delhi w.e.f. March 25, 2022, for six months, or till joining of the new Director, whichever is earlier." Guleria was appointed as director for a term of five years on March 28, 2017.

His tenure was extended twice by three months each. Dr Guleria's second extended tenure as the Director of AIIMS-Delhi was scheduled to end on September 23.

Earlier in March, the names of three doctors -- Nikhil Tandon, head of the department of endocrinology; Rajesh Malhotra, chief of AIIMS Trauma Centre and the head of the department of orthopaedics; and Pramod Garg, professor in the gastroenterology department in the institute -- shortlisted by a search-cum-selection committee and subsequently approved by the Institute Body, the top decision-making body of the AIIMS, were sent to the ACC for approval.

The ACC headed by the prime minister on June 20 sought a wider panel of names for the post of director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) here. Following this, the names of MV Padma Srivastava, chief of Neurosciences Centre; Dr Balram Bhargava, former ICMR director general; and Dr Rakesh Aggarwal, director of Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education & Research, Puducherry were discussed.

Then the names of Dr M Srinivas, Dean of Employees' State Insurance Company (ESIC) Hospital and Medical College in Hyderabad, and Dr Sanjay Behari, Director of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology, Trivandrum, were shortlisted by the selection-cum-search panel headed by the Union Health Secretary.

"The names of Dr Srinivas and Dr Behari were placed before the Institute Body on Wednesday before being sent to ACC for final approval," a source said. Interestingly, neither Dr Srinivas nor Dr Behari had applied for the post.

Dr Behari was professor and head of Neurosurgery department at Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow before he took charge as the director of Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology, Trivandrum in April.