Lucknow, Sep 4 (IANS): Of the six new All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) coming up in different states, two will be headed by doctors from this Uttar Pradesh capital.

G.K. Singh and Sandeep Kumar -- surgeons working at the century-old King George's Medical College (now Chattrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University) have been selected to head the new AIIMS at Patna in Bihar and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh respectively.

The other AIIMS are located at Jodhpur in Rajasthan, Raipur in Chhattisgarh, Rishikesh in Uttarakhand and Bhubaneswar in Orissa.

"The decision to set up AIIMS on the lines of the 50-year-old AIIMS in New Delhi was taken by the central government a couple of years ago to make tertiary medical care available to common people in different parts of the country," Singh told IANS.

"I am told that all the new AIIMS would become functional by 2012," said Kumar.

Singh is the head of the orthopaedics surgery department and Kumar heads the breast surgery department. Both have had brilliant academic records and wide experience in their respective disciplines.

Singh is an alumnae of King George's Medical College where he topped his batch, while Kumar passed out with a gold medal from the Allahabad Medical College. Both joined King George's Medical College as lecturers and have been teaching there for three decades.

While Singh was a Fellow of the International College of Surgeons, Kumar did his Ph.D from Cardiff University and was a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Singh has the distinction of doing a stint as advisor at the B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences in Nepal.

Both said they would assume their new offices later this month. The academic session at the Patna and Bhopal AIIMS is expected to commence from 2012.