As many as 5,044 people recovered and got discharged today, aggregating to 24,13,930 leaving 37,526 active infections, a medical bulletin said. As many as 23 districts reported new infections in double digits while there were no fresh deaths in 12 districts, the bulletin said.

Chennai saw 249 people contracting the contagion aggregating to 5,32,759 till date. The number of COVID-19 related fatalities in the State capital also reached 8,191. The testing of RT-PCR samples stood at 1,63,654 in the last 24 hours, pushing the cumulative number of specimens examined so far to 3.30 crore.

Among the 102 deaths, 17 were patients without any co- morbidity or pre-existing illness which include a 19 year old girl from Sivagangai. The girl who tested positive on June 29, succumbed to the virus due to the COVID-19 pneumonia on Thursday(July 1).

A private lab in Madurai was recently accorded approval to hold COVID-19 testing pushing the number of facilities operating in the State to 272. Earlier in the day, Minister for medical and family welfare Ma Subramanian told reporters that the Centre in its recent letter to the state government had suggested that those interested in joining the proposed AIIMS in the state be accommodated in JIPMER, Puducherry, or the government medical college in Madurai.

"All the three recommendations made by the Centre have challenges in their own way as the existing medical college in Madurai already has 250 students and if we are going to add another 150 as per the suggestion made by the Centre, a need arises to upgrade the medical infrastructure there. Similarly, admitting new students in JIPMER is also another issue as whether the students will be relatively studying in a different state (Puducherry)", he said.

The Minister said the government was contemplating the idea of admitting 50 students each in the existing medical colleges in Madurai, Theni and Sivagangai districts. To a query, he said the idea was that the students after getting admitted to a different college would be studying there till the construction for new AIIMS gets over in Madurai.

"Once the construction work is over they would be shifted to AIIMS in Madurai, a suggestion that was made by the Centre," he said. Noting that several months have passed since the foundation stone laying ceremony was held in Madurai district for AIIMS, he said a fresh agreement was expected to be signed between the Centre and JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) with revised project estimates.

"Earlier, it was decided to set up AIIMS in Madurai at an outlay of Rs 1,264 crore. However, we need to revise the estimates due to the delay in the project and the Centre was expected to sign another agreement with JICA who will be funding the project", he said.

Subramanian recalled that Chief Minister M K Stalin had already taken up the matter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in June. He blamed the erstwhile AIADMK government for the project moving at a snail's pace.

On the vaccination drive, the Minister said people in Tamil Nadu were keen to get the jabs. "We have been requesting the Centre for additional doses. In June they had allotted 41 lakh doses but it was enhanced by adding another 5 lakh doses. For July, they said that 71 lakh doses will be sent to the state. This morning we received over one lakh doses," he added.