CHANDIGARH: With only a few months to go for the assembly elections in Punjab, Delhi Chief Minister and AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday announced that if his party was voted to power in the state, it would provide “free and best” healthcare services to the people.
Kejriwal, who was on a two-day Punjab visit, made these announcements in Ludhiana as his “second guarantee”. Earlier, under his “first guarantee”, the AAP supremo had announced 300 free units of electricity and 24 hours power supply for the people of Punjab.
Kejriwal said health infrastructure in Punjab was in a bad condition. “If you go to a government hospital in Punjab, you will not get any treatment. In Delhi too, when we took over seven years ago, the condition was bad. However, we brought in changes and will do the same in Punjab also,” he said.
Under the “6-point second guarantee”, Kejrwial announced free and best treatment facilities at government hospitals. “In Delhi, one gets good medicines and injections free of cost at government hospitals. But in Punjab, even medicines are not available in hospitals,” he said.
He said each person will be issued a digital health card, which would comprise all medical records. He also announced opening ‘pind clinics’ on the lines of Delhi’s mohalla clinics. “Our mohalla clinics in Delhi are famous all around the world. On the same lines, we will open 16,000 ‘pind clinics’ in Punjab.” Kejriwal also vowed to revamp the infrastructure of existing government hospitals and to set up new ones. Lastly, Kejriwal announced a scheme for free treatment to accident victims.
“In this ongoing political instability in Punjab, a ray of hope appears in the form of AAP,” he added. Slamming the Congress over the recent happenings in the state, Kejriwal said, “Punjab had elected the Congress government with great hopes. But today, they have made a mockery of it.”
Meanwhile SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal said Kejriwal was “lying brazenly” on health sector achievements in Delhi while the RTI queries clearly reveal that health facilities in Delhi are the worst in the country.