to provide interventional cardiology services. 2000: The Emergency and Trauma block was inaugurated. 2001: A separate Administrative Block was inaugurated to consolidate all offices spread across the hospital campus. 2002: The Department of Radiotherapy was upgraded as a Regional Cancer Centre. The centre now includes the Departments of Radiotherapy, Medical Oncology, and Surgical Oncology. 2006: JIPMER College of Nursing was inaugurated and started functioning. 2008: JIPMER was upgraded as an Institution of National Importance by an act of Indian Parliament. 2009: The Super Specialty Block started functioning, initially providing services from Cardiothoracic Surgery, Cardiology, Urology, and Plastic Surgery 2012: Paediatric, Obstetric and Gynaecology services moved into the JIPMER Women and Children's Hospital, which was inaugurated by Dr Manmohan Singh, the then Prime Minister of India. Campus The campus of JIPMER lies at the western entrance of Pondicherry and spreads across of a hillock known locally as Gorimedu. The campus contains the medical college, the old and new hospital blocks, student and resident hostels, staff quarters, a Kendriya Vidyalaya, a branch each of two nationalized banks, two ATM's, a post office, a temple, the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam JIPMER Auditorium playgrounds and sporting fields. Organization and administration The institute is headed by the Director, who is the chief executive charged with the overall responsibility of running the institute and its hospital. The Medical Superintendent helps the Director coordinate all the hospital functions pertaining to patient care. Dean (Academic) is charged with overseeing and coordinating all the academic activities of the institute including teaching, whereas Dean (Research) looks after all the research-related activities. Principals of Dhanvantri Medical College/JIPMER, Pondicherry Leon Lapeyssonie—first Principal S Vengsarkar D Jagannath Reddy Bala Subramanian DB Bisht Directors of JIPMER MN Ghosh—first Director OP Bhargava P Bahadur S Chandrasekar DS Dubey Deepak Ruhil KB Logani PH Ananthanarayanan (first JIPMER alumnus to become director of the institute) KSVK Subba Rao TS Ravikumar Subhash Chandra Parija Vishnu Bhatt Vivekanandam RP Swaminathan Rakesh Aggarwal Regional Cancer Centre The Department of Radiotherapy at JIPMER was converted to a Regional Cancer Centre in 2002. , the Regional Cancer Centre has two departments housed in a new building, namely Radiotherapy and Medical Oncology. Advanced radiation treatment facilities, ranging from 3D conformal radiation and IMRT to Image-guided Radiation Therapy (IGRT) are available. Basic radiation facilities, such as 2D Cobalt and LINAC, HDR brachytherapy are available free to all cancer patients. Further, most of the commonly