Soon after it was formally inaugurated by Bihar's Health Minister Ashwani Kumar Choubey, the first batch of 50 students of AIIMS-Patna attended their first class at the medical college parts of which are still under-construction.

"The first class attended by the first batch of students symbolised the beginning of the medical college of AIIMS-Patna," Girish Kumar Singh, founder director of AIIMS-Patna said.

Singh said the first batch of students, comprising 13 girls and 37 boys, came from different parts of the country. They were selected through an all-India pre-medical test conducted by AIIMS in May in Delhi.

Singh recalled that a few months ago, union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad had announced the opening of AIIMS-Patna this year.

AIIMS-Patna will launch a hospital facility by the next year, Singh told IANS.

The central government in 2006 decided to set up six AIIMS-like institutes across the country, including at Patna, Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jaipur and Rishikesh.

In 2009, the government had further decided to set up two more AIIMS-like institutes at Raiganj in West Bengal and Rae Bareli in Uttar Pradesh.