This is the finding of a first-of-its-kind study submitted by AIIMS' department of hospital administration to the dean recently. The figure includes both direct (services of the faculty and stipend) and indirect (services of non-teaching personnel and furniture) costs incurred by the country's premier teaching hospital over the five-and-a-half year period.

According to the study `Determination of the cost of training of MBBS student at AIIMS' conducted under the supervision of Dr Shakti Gupta, (HoD), department of hospital administration at AIIMS, if computed using a traditional costing method, AIIMS spends Rs 31.31 lakh on every undergraduate student per year per course.

When calculated using the Time Driven Activity Based Costing method (TD-ABC), the study says that total costs incurred on one MBBS student is Rs 98 lakh per course.

"As against this, the annual fee of an MBBS student at AIIMS is Rs 850 per year that includes hostel and tuition fee," Dr Gupta told TOI.

Of the 2,129 students who passed out in the first 42 batches of the MBBS programme at AIIMS -- from its inception in 1956 to 1997 -- the study team tracked down 1,477 doctors. Of them, 780 or 52.81% were found to be working abroad.

Spendings of AIIMS on a doctor is too much looking at the performance of these doctors, who are more prone to foreign destination than serving in India. Somewhere I feel this money is going waste. Haven’t you realized it at times?