Bengaluru, Dec 30 (IANS): Karnataka would soon have an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), said state Health and Medical Education Minister K. Sudhkar on Tuesday.

"As we are committed to have one AIIMS in our state, we are in the process of obtaining the central government's permission to set it up and make it functional soon," Sudhakar told reporters at an official function here.

The central government plans to set up 22 AIIMS or one in each state across the country in compliance with a national health policy that was formulated in 2002 by the previous NDA government under the then Prime Minister A.B.Vajpayee.

The NDA government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi has permitted setting up of 157 medical colleges over the last 6 years since it came to power in 2014.

As setting up a medical college requires Rs 600-700 crore, the Minister said the state government would build a medical college in every district across the state under the public-private partnership (PPP) model as in Gujarat.

"Our aim is to have a medical college with a super-specialty hospital attached to it in every district across the state to provide best healthcare so that people need not go to cities for treatment," asserted Sudhakar, a medical doctor by profession.

In the 30 districts across the southern state, government-run medical colleges are in 21 districts and none in nine districts.

Though as per the World Health Organisation's (WHO) guidelines, there should be one doctor for 1,000 people, India has one doctor for 12,000 population.

"Hence, there is a dire need to open more medical colleges to churn out more doctors and set up more hospitals to improve the doctor-patient ratio across the country," asserted Sudhakar.

Earlier, Chief Minister B.S.Yediyurappa inaugurated the new building of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Medical Sciences and Research centre at Shivajinagar in the city's central business district.

"Karnataka will soon have a new health and medical education policy to ramp up the healthcare infrastructure across the state for serving the people," added Sudhakar.