Guwahati | Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday dedicated the first AIIMS in the North East, built at a cost of Rs 1,123 crore, to the nation.

The super-speciality hospital will provide healthcare not only to people in Assam but also to other northeastern states.

He also virtually inaugurated three medical colleges at Nalbari, Nagaon and Kokrajhar.

The 500-bed tertiary care teaching hospitals with 24 undergraduate departments in the three medical colleges will start with 100 annual MBBS student intake, taking the total MBBS student intake to 1500 in Assam.

He also laid the foundation of the Rs 546 crore Assam Advanced Healthcare Innovation Institute (AAHII), a joint initiative of the state government and IIT Guwahati.

AAHII aims to promote inventions and innovations in medicine and healthcare, nurturing multidisciplinary research and development in frontier areas of medicine by marrying engineering with healthcare.

The prime minister also launched the distribution of 1.1 crore Ayushman cards to beneficiaries who will be able to avail cashless healthcare medical treatment benefits up to Rs five lakh with these cards.