AIIMS vacancies: Madurai had 72 of its 1,011 non-faculty posts filled in 2026-27; one of the answer's 80 rows does not add up

What was asked

The Lok Sabha asked the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for the sanctioned, filled and vacant faculty and non-faculty posts at each All India Institute of Medical Sciences; the effect of vacancies at AIIMS New Delhi on patients’ waiting time, medical education and administration; the number of appointments made at the AIIMS in the last three years; and whether a time-bound plan for recruitment was coming. The answer of 24 July 2026 (Unstarred Question 970) gives one table: posts at 20 functional AIIMS for 2023-24, 2024-25, 2025-26 and 2026-27, “the last three years and current year”. It lists the measures taken to fill posts and says: “Filling up of vacant faculty/non-faculty positions is contingent on various factors including availability of suitable/eligible/qualified doctors/health professionals, reservation roster, location of the Institute etc.”

Madurai: 72 of 1,011

AIIMS Madurai had 72 of its 1,011 sanctioned non-faculty posts filled in 2026-27; 939 were vacant, 92.9%, the highest share of the 20 institutes. The next is Rajkot (Gujarat), at 46.1%. The answer’s measures for non-faculty posts include recruitment examinations for nursing officers and for Group B and C posts.

The table shows how Madurai got there. In 2023-24 it had 4 of 903 non-faculty posts filled; in 2024-25, 40 of 911; in 2025-26, 40 of 911 again, the only institute in the table whose filled non-faculty figure did not change from one year to the next; and in 2026-27, 72, while 100 posts were added. Its faculty posts are 59.0% vacant, 108 of 183, also the highest share of the 20; the next is Rajkot, at 48.6%. The answer does not say why Madurai’s figures differ from the other institutes’; the reasons it gives are for all of them together.

Adds up: one row does not

In 79 of the 80 rows, sanctioned posts equal filled plus vacant, for faculty and for non-faculty. The exception is Jodhpur’s non-faculty row for 2025-26: 4,084 sanctioned, 3,322 filled and 726 vacant. Filled and vacant add to 4,048, 36 short. The next year the table prints 4,048 sanctioned posts at Jodhpur, the figure that filled and vacant add to; the year before, 3,884. The answer does not say which figure for 2025-26 is right. The PDF prints the same figures as the Word file.

Jodhpur’s faculty posts went from 305 to 405 in 2025-26 while filled posts went from 222 to 221, so its faculty vacancies more than doubled, from 83 to 184. For 2026-27 the table prints the same three faculty figures again. Two institutes have a faculty row identical to the year before: Bhubaneswar (337, 238 and 99) and Jodhpur (405, 221 and 184). The answer does not say whether those figures were brought up to date.

AIIMS New Delhi

The question asked about AIIMS New Delhi by name. Its faculty vacancies rose from 357 in 2023-24 to 436 in 2026-27, 33.2% of 1,313 posts, and its non-faculty vacancies from 2,114 to 2,461. New Delhi and Patna are the two institutes where a larger share of non-faculty posts was vacant in 2026-27 than in 2023-24. The question asked what the vacancies mean for patients’ waiting time, for teaching and for administration. The answer lists steps the institutes have taken, such as online appointments and same-day investigation, and gives no waiting time and no measure of the effect.

What the answer does not give

The number of appointments made in the last three years, which the question asked for. The table gives the posts filled each year; across the 20 institutes filled faculty posts went from 3,490 to 4,123 and filled non-faculty posts from 32,043 to 44,066 between 2023-24 and 2026-27, but that is appointments less departures, and the answer gives neither. An answer of 31 July 2026 (Unstarred Question 2254) says six doctors of AIIMS New Delhi opted for voluntary retirement in 2025, and gives no figure for resignations or for the other AIIMS.

The question also asked whether a time-bound recruitment plan would be put in place. The answer describes the measures already in use, standing selection committees, retired and visiting faculty and common recruitment examinations, and gives no timeline. It gives no date on which each year’s figures were counted, and no totals. A later answer, of 7 August 2026 on faculty shortages in medical colleges and the AIIMS (Unstarred Question 3419), gives no figures.

Got it right

The answer gives every institute, four years and both kinds of post in one table, which is what makes this audit possible, and its Word file and PDF agree in every figure. Across the 20 institutes the share of non-faculty posts vacant fell from 39.2% in 2023-24 to 25.6% in 2026-27, and the share of faculty posts vacant from 39.2% to 34.6%, while 562 faculty and 6,531 non-faculty posts were added. Fourteen of the 20 had a smaller share of faculty posts vacant at the end than at the start. Nagpur filled 134 more faculty posts, more than any other institute, going from 148 to 282. Bhopal has the lowest share of faculty posts vacant, 21.8%, and Jodhpur the lowest share of non-faculty posts vacant, 17.2%. Madurai itself has gone from 4 filled non-faculty posts to 72 and from 47 filled faculty posts to 75.

Faculty vacancies were higher in 2026-27 than in 2023-24 at six institutes: New Delhi, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Rishikesh, Gorakhpur and Bathinda; in each of them faculty posts were added over the period.

Every AIIMS, every year

How we did this

• Source: the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare’s answer to Lok Sabha Unstarred Question 970 of 24 July 2026, with Unstarred Question 2254 of 31 July 2026 and Unstarred Question 3419 of 7 August 2026.
• The 80 rows were read from the answer’s Word file by a script and every row was matched against its PDF. In every row we checked that sanctioned posts equal filled plus vacant, for faculty and for non-faculty.
• Totals, shares and changes are our arithmetic on the answer’s figures. A vacancy share is vacant posts divided by sanctioned posts.
• We searched the Lok Sabha’s index for later answers on AIIMS posts and found the two above, neither with a new table. Vacancies at ESIC hospitals and in state health services are in an earlier audit and another.
• Download the data: aiims-faculty-non-faculty-posts-2023-24-to-2026-27.csv. Our method and labels are on the Data Audit method page.

Questions

Corrections

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