The faculty vacancies at All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) are at a four-year high in the academic year 2025-26 at 2,561, the highest since 2022-23, the government has told Parliament. The vacancy rate of 40.2% is equal to that of 2023-24.
Minister of state for health Prataprao Jadhav gave the information in a written response to Samajwadi Party Rajya Sabha lawmaker Javed Ali Khan’s questions related to vacancies and the functional status of 23 AIIMS.
Jadhav called the creation of posts and recruitment a continuous process and detailed the steps taken to expedite the filling of vacant positions. “Each AIIMS has a standing selection committee to fast-track recruitment,” he said. He added retired faculty from Institutes of National Importance and government medical colleges can be appointed on contracts up to the age of 70. “Visiting faculty scheme has been introduced to allow senior faculty from Indian and foreign institutions to teach at the new AIIMS.”
Jadhav said 19 AIIMS are fully functional. He added that AIIMS Madurai (Tamil Nadu) is partially functional, and the ones in Awantipora (Jammu and Kashmir), Darbhanga (Bihar), and Rewari (Haryana) are under construction. All but three AIIMS had sanctioned faculty posts starting from 2022-23.
At AIIMS Awantipora, 94 faculty posts were sanctioned in 2023-24. The sanctioned strength remains vacant. AIIMS Darbhanga and AIIMS Rewari have not had any faculty posts.
{{/usCountry}}At AIIMS Awantipora, 94 faculty posts were sanctioned in 2023-24. The sanctioned strength remains vacant. AIIMS Darbhanga and AIIMS Rewari have not had any faculty posts.
{{/usCountry}}A total of 2,099 out of 5,410 sanctioned faculty posts were vacant across 20 AIIMS in 2022-23, a rate of 38.8%. In 2023-24, the number rose to 2,346 out of 5,836 posts across 21 AIIMS, pushing the rate to 40.2%. There was a slight improvement in 2024-25, with 2,236 vacancies out of 5,943 posts at 21 AIIMS, reducing the rate to 37.6%.
In 2025-26, faculty vacancies peaked to 2,561 out of 6,376 posts at 21 AIIMS, matching the four-year high vacancy rate of 40.2% in 2023-24. Six AIIMS, including top-ranked Delhi (462), Bhubaneswar (103), Jodhpur (186), Rishikesh (147), Mangalagiri (158), and Gorakhpur (98), recorded their highest faculty vacancies in 2025-26 over the past four years.
AIIMS Awantipora (100%), AIIMS Madurai (73.2%), AIIMS Rajkot (58.5%), and AIIMS Mangalagiri (51.1%) faced over 50% faculty vacancies in 2025-26. Fourteen of the institutes had over 30% vacancies. They included AIIMS Delhi (35.4%). AIIMS Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Rishikesh, Mangalagiri, Nagpur, Kalyani, Gorakhpur, Bilaspur, and Deoghar recorded an increase in faculty vacancies in 2025-26 compared to 2022-23.
There was a decrease in faculty vacancies from 2022-23 to 2025-26 at AIIMS Bhopal, Raipur, Madurai, Patna, Bathinda, Guwahati, Bibinagar, Raebareli, Rajkot, and Jammu.
Former AIIMS Bhopal executive director Ajai Singh said that practical learning of medical concepts gets affected, which impacts the training of doctors, due to a shortage of faculty. “Doctors avoid working in government hospitals due to the low pay compared to corporate hospitals. Doctors find a more lucrative future in corporate hospitals.” He called this the major reason behind vacancies and asked the government to look into it.