Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday said the medical profession is "not commerce but service" and likened the role of a doctor to a priest in a temple, who is dutiful to a patient and the hospital.

Mandaviya was addressing the fourth convocation ceremony of the AIIMS, Jodhpur, in which 22 students were awarded medals while about 780 UG, PG, Nursing and super-specialty students were given degrees. The minister also inaugurated and laid foundation stones for several facilities at AIIMS, Jodhpur and six other AIIMS in Bilaspur, Bhubneswar, Nagpur, Deoghar, Gorakhpur and Rishikesh.

Addressing the gathering, Mandaviya said, "Medical (profession) in India is not commerce, it is service." He called upon the passing out students to voluntarily serve in far remote areas without having any need for the government to get them to fill a bond to this effect.

"In my country, there is no necessity for the doctors to fill a bond and they realise that unless the health facilities are not accessible to all, I will serve wherever the duty is given", he said. The health minister urged the passing out doctors to pledge that they would serve as government doctors for at least two years in those primary health centres (PHC) in remote desert areas of this state where no doctor wishes to go.

"If we work with this vision, only then we will be able to realise the dream of a developed country by 2047", the minister said.