11th June, 2026
A virtual meeting of the AIIMS Consortium was held on 11 June 2026 from 2:00–3:30 PM via Zoom under the leadership of Prof. (Dr.) Sonu Goel, President, Resource Centre for Tobacco Control (RCTC), PGIMER Chandigarh. The Consortium, a national network comprising 14 AIIMS and 22 medical colleges, was first convened in 2023 at the National Academy of Medical Sciences (NAMS), New Delhi.
During the meeting, a landmark White Paper Writing Programme was launched, modelled on the ICMR White Paper on Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (IJMR, 2019), which contributed to the enactment of the Prohibition of Electronic Cigarettes Act (PECA), 2019. Three multi-institutional policy white papers were initiated on: (1) COTPA Amendment: Closing the Gap; (2) Tobacco-Free Generation: From Concept to Reality; and (3) Closing the Fiscal Gap: Increasing Taxes on Bidis, with the aim of submitting them to peer-reviewed journals.
Representatives from 12 AIIMS institutions participated in the meeting. Member institutions were also tasked with uploading conflict of interest (COI) declarations, pursuing Tobacco-Free Campus status, submitting reports on World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) 2026 activities, organizing state-level webinars, and mapping private medical colleges in their respective states to further strengthen the national tobacco control network.
